


Off the Radar

by Callaeidae3



Series: Under the Radar [2]
Category: Voltron: Legendary Defender
Genre: Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Friendship, Gen, Heavy Angst, Hurt Keith (Voltron), Hurt/Comfort, Keith (Voltron) Whump, Keith (Voltron) has PTSD - Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder, Keith (Voltron)-centric, Platonic Relationships, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder - PTSD, Recovery, Team Voltron Family
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-05-25
Updated: 2018-06-15
Packaged: 2019-05-13 15:17:52
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 16
Words: 37,544
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14751347
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Callaeidae3/pseuds/Callaeidae3
Summary: Following the events of 'Under the Radar' (prequel), Keith is still raw from his trauma of being experimented on by Garrison scientists. 'Off the Radar' explores the butterfly effect of this and its impact on the canon storyline, the inter-paladin relationships and Keith's paladin-Lion relationships.





	1. S1E1 -- Red Paladin

**Author's Note:**

> Under the Radar: Keith's knife is confiscated and Garrison scientists discover that its metal isn't from Earth. Biosecurity officer Commander/Doctor Laurens takes biosecurity measures into her own hands and captures Keith for testing, as he's suspected of having a link to the unknown origin of the knife. The tests she runs are closer to torture. All this happens under the radar; nobody knows this is going on. Blue reaches out and makes a connection with Keith to keep him emotionally sustained. Then Lance notices something strange about Keith's expulsion and manages to convince his simulation crew, Pidge and Hunk, to join him on investigating. They almost don't get to Keith in time. Thanks to Pidge's hacking and help from a certain Commander, Keith's life is saved and the Garrison Trio hightail it away from the Garrison. Blue leads Keith and the others to find her in the desert, however this means that Blue must shut off her connection with him in favour of bonding with her new Blue paladin. 
> 
> Off the Radar: Keith may be off Laurens' radar now, and far away from the Garrison, but he's traumatised and hasn't had any time to really process the turmoil of emotions going on inside of him. It's going to be a while before he's 'himself' again.
> 
>  
> 
> Thanks to everyone who's read and encouraged me on 'Under the Radar'!!! Kudos!! <3 <3  
> Aaand, earlier than anticipated, here's the start of Part 2!! (Chapter 1 edited: 26/05)

Keith’s having trouble processing everything.

None of it makes sense: first he’s being killed by a scientist who decided to dispose of him, then somehow he wakes up to find he’s freed and rescued; the presumed-dead Takashi Shirogane shows up back on Earth during said rescue, most definitely _not_ dead; the voice that reached out to him during his trauma, and the visions he’d had, turn out to be a hundred percent real – and all coming from a half-sentient giant robotic Blue Lion nonetheless.

He’s still struggling to come to grips with the torture he’s just been rescued from. Now Keith’s trying to wrap his head around _aliens_ , an intergalactic war, wormholes, robotic space cats…

And a pounding concussion.

They’re all following a lit pathway down alien castle halls, not exactly sure where it leads. The castle appears to be entirely uninhabited. Keith wonders why anyone on this Earth-like planet would build such a massive castle and leave it empty. It’s almost like it was abandoned…and the people who abandoned it weren’t exactly given a choice.

Shiro keeps an eye on him. Thanks to Lance’s awful piloting, Keith’s not doing so well. He’s been unsteady on his feet all day, but after sustaining a decent concussion during the somersaults Lance put the Blue Lion into, his sense of up and down has gotten worse. A couple of times as they’re walking, Keith suddenly takes a few stumbling steps sideways before he regains his balance.

The odd thing is that nobody seems to really notice. Keith would rather they didn’t. He trusts Shiro, but he’s not sure of the others. Sure, Lance, Hunk and Pidge were his rescuers, but he doesn’t know them. Keith’s outnumbered. If the three of them were to insist he receive medical attention and Shiro were to join them…

_Tied down. No matter how many times he pleads with them, they don't listen. The doctor gets sick of hearing him beg and shout, tells the nurse to take out the mouth piece..._

The flashbacks intrude into his every train of thought. He doesn’t _try_ to think about it; the memories recur regardless of whether he wants them to or not. Keith might be off the radar of Laurens and her research team, and all those traumatising tests and experiments might all be behind him now, but the memory refuses to let go of him. It’s his brain warning him, keeping him on constant alert in case there’s even the slightest sign that he’s going to be shoved into a similar situation again. It’s his body reminding him what they did to him, and how - no matter how taxing this hypervigilance is - he _cannot_ allow himself to be tortured again or else it might very well be the end of him.

It’s the footsteps. The footsteps.

_Tap, squeak, thump._

Keith treads so quietly he can’t hear his own footfalls. Doing this allows him to keep tabs on where everyone else is around him. He might be facing forwards, but his eyes are constantly flicking back and forth between the shadows of the unlit hallways and the others’ hands. If they so much as change direction and turn towards him...

_I’ve just got to stay on guard. I’ve just got to make sure I don’t walk blindly into a trap like I did last time._

The five of them come to a large room with a circular platform in the middle, a control panel located at its centre. This appears to be their destination – there’s no other doors being lit up to show them the way, no hallway lights blinking on. But there’s no one here, and all Keith can think is that they’ve just walked into an ambush. Nobody attacks. Pidge strolls up to the control panel to investigate it.

Keith’s unsure if the timing is coincidental or not, but as the two mist-filled chambers rise up out of the ground, a hideous noise fills his ears – a ringing of sustained frequency. He clamps his gloved hands over his ears, but it does nothing to block out the noise because it’s all _inside his head –_

It's the noise sensitivity test all over again.

Panic spreads like a flashfire throughout his body. All of a sudden the lights are too bright and he’s swaying. Shiro’s at his side as Keith sinks to his knees, doubles over and squeezes his eyes shut. He shouldn’t be freaking out like this, it’s only a slight ringing in ears, probably a result of the concussion. He shouldn’t be freaking out like this, but he is, and it’s more than he can take.

“’eith, are you okay?”

“I’m fine,” he hisses between his teeth, even as a shiver runs up his spine.

Of course he’s not and he’s making it so _obvious._ Keith doesn’t realise, but there’s an alien princess staring at him and asking what’s wrong with him, what’s wrong with his ears. Lance distracts her and the man from the second chamber by asking who on earth – who in the universe – they are.

Eventually the ringing in his ears tones down, enough so that Keith can remove his shaking hands from his head. He’s in time to hear Shiro’s startled exclamation.

“Zarkon? I was his prisoner…”

Keith has no idea what Shiro’s talking about, but the princess – the glimpse he gets of her through his swirling vision – she seems to know pretty darn well what’s he’s talking about. The Princess looks shell-shocked.

“He’s still alive?" she asks. "After ten thousand years…?”

Keith takes a deep breath as Shiro helps him stand. He catches Shiro’s hard look of concern, the non-verbal question he’s asking. Keith dismisses his concern with a curt nod. After making sure he’s able to stand okay, Shiro leaves him to discuss matters with the alien princess.

Lance has noticed now. Now that the signs of concussion are beginning to reveal themselves, Lance is sticking close to him, keeping an eye on him when Shiro can’t. It unnerves Keith to be watched like this,  _monitored_ , like when the doctor came in with his lab coat on to check how far the poison had progressed and how well Keith was dealing with it. Trying desperately to act ‘fine’, Keith stands rigid and focuses on keeping the anxiety from displaying itself on his face. He’s not sure how successful he is.

The remnant fear of his panic attack hasn’t worn off yet, making him a little more subdued and irritable than he usually is. It worries him as much as the shallowness of his breaths are at present. He’s not himself. How long will it be until he _is_ himself again…?

How hard does he have to try before he can _remember_ what it felt like to be, well, Keith?

Inside, Keith feels the gnawing absence of Blue. He could really do with her voice right now. When Princess Allura of Altea takes them all up to the Castle bridge and tells him he’ll pilot the Red Lion, Keith can’t help but feel like he’s a cheat. Blue came to _him,_ not the other way around. Now Allura’s assuming that the Red Lion’s going to accept him, just like that. It feels rather unfair on Red, almost wrong to impose on the Red Lion like that.

 _It’s her choice,_ he mumbles in his head. _It’s not up for you, or even me, to decide for her._

Perhaps he’s just afraid he’ll be rejected. It’s not as if he doesn’t see it coming. He’s a mess right now, an emotional wreck. If Red’s anything like Allura’s saying she is, she needs a pilot who can really focus on the situation at hand and respond accordingly. Right now, all Keith’s instincts are yelling fight-or-flight, fight-or-flight, and yeah, sure, that’s instincts, but this…this isn’t healthy. At this rate, Keith’s adrenaline stores are going to go down so fast that he’ll have nothing to left to respond to his instincts, much less have enough energy to make any good use of his advanced flight skills.

Shiro goes with Pidge to find the Green Lion, Hunk with Lance to find the Yellow Lion. Keith stays behind in the Castle while Allura and Coran search for the Red Lion’s whereabouts.

Keith begins to doubt himself. No, he’s already doing that. His doubt’s deepening. There’s no way Red’s going to want him as her paladin. Shiro’ll no doubt be accepted by Black. _In control at all times_ , Allura had said. Shiro has just come out of some terrible traumatic experiences himself, but he’s still in control of his emotions. Keith, on the other hand…he’s so _out of control_ of his emotions, it’s actually scaring him. The concussion isn’t making anything better, either; it’s just amplifying his confusion so that the chaos going on inside of him is twenty times worse.

 

Red doesn’t respond.

Keith touches the red force field surrounding her, but she doesn’t open it for him like Blue did for Lance. He starts clutching at the last straws of his hope and it’s ridiculous how desperate his voice sounds.

“It’s me... Keith, y-your buddy.”

The Lion just hangs suspended in the air, unresponsive. Keith swallows his anxiousness.

“It’s me…Keith! Your – I am your paladin!”

The shield comes up over his white and red paladin armour in time to avoid being shot by an onslaught of gunfire. Sentries. Keith narrows his eyes, counting how many there are, evaluating their movements and bracing himself in anticipation of the next volley. He swings a strained glance over his shoulder at the Lion.

“Hey, talk to me! I’m bonding with you!”

Red is not for him. No, _he’s_ not for her. She doesn’t want him. Keith’s not her paladin.

That’s all there is to it.

Even so, he is _not_ letting these Galra have her.

Keith waits until the sentries are where he wants them. He’s there, too, but who cares? He deals a few blows with his bayard-sword, switches his helmet visor onto full and then slams his palm down on the hangar doors’ control panel.

Space opens up beneath him. It sucks out the sentries. Keith’s tugged by its vaccum. It wants him too. He clings to the control panel pedestal, digs deep in an effort to pull himself forward enough to reach the button that will close the hangar doors again. Debri slaps his hand away. Keith’s fingers burn. He looks up a second before a block of debri slams into his helmet.

Keith cries out as he’s sucked out of the ship. Space is so vast around him, dark and immeasurable and empty. There’s nothing to hold onto. Nothing to cling to. For some reason the in-helmet communications have gone static, and there’s no sign of Green, nor Pidge, nor Shiro…

This is it for him. They’re not going to be able to locate him out here. It’s fine. They could do without him. Red can do without him. Voltron doesn’t need a traumatised pilot who can’t even control his emotions.

Fire flares in his chest. It shocks him, exhilarating. Leaves him breathless.

Red. It’s the Red Lion.

In a heartbeat he’s snapped up out of space and tumbling into the transition zone between airlock and cockpit. By the time he’s in the pilot’s seat, there’s a warmth washing over his mind. It concentrates at the back of his head, easing the throbbing, dulling the pain, lessening his concussion. The ache recedes until only a surface-deep bruise is left.

Keith’s hands fall on the control sticks, his fingers curling around the handles. There’s a deeply impacting shockwave of energy resonating from his heart as Red’s quintessence merges with his. She feels his pain and he feels her passion. She’s enraged at the chaotic memories and the content of them, and she floods Keith’s mind with _fire, protection, instinct, intensity, fight_ and _roar._

This is Red’s voice.

Keith’s overwhelmed close to tears. He can hear her voice and her presence – it’s all around him, it’s weaving in and out of his being, beating in time with his own heartbeat. Unlike the stirring in his chest like he felt with Blue’s presence, Red’s presence _burns_. There’s so much emotional intensity to her being, her fire penetrates Keith’s own whirlwind of thoughts and sweeps him up into a state of simply being – of being there, in the moment, where intuition abounds and deep thoughts have no place.

Red wants him. Red wants to match the ferocity of her emotions with his. She wants to protect him as Keith just proved he was willing to protect her.

Red growls, a stern purr that ripples through Keith’s being. Then her voice concentrates, boils down into three clear, resonating words:

_You’re my paladin._

Keith smiles. 


	2. S1E1-2 -- Blue and Red

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Just a heads up, I did a quick edit of Chapter 1 so it flows a little better :)  
> Also, for those of you who are wondering, 'Off the Radar' is going to explore the butterfly effect 'Under the Radar' has on the storyline up until when Keith makes the decision to leave Voltron in Season 4. I won't be covering every single episode, but I'll probably take the story to S4E6, as this is where Keith pretty much goes right off Team Voltron's radar following his kamikaze incident. 
> 
> But that's quite a way away yet :) We're only at Chapter 2!

Lance doesn't notice anything out of the ordinary with the Keith, not until the guy falls to his knees with his hands clapped over his ears. He wore his usual scowl as they made their way out of the Blue Lion, and the wariness in his eyes as they walked the path lit for them down the Castle hallways was the same wariness everyone had about them. Apart from being a little unsteady on his feet at times, Keith seemed to have been doing fine.

 _He’s good at that_ , Lance realises. _He’s so good at using his temperamental attitude to hide anything that’s going on inside of him. Unless he’s really scared, he won’t show what he’s feeling._

His concern for Keith swells. In all the video files Pidge uncovered, not once was Keith able to keep up his brave act. Laurens _broke_ him, and for almost two whole weeks, Keith had to live like that – defenceless, and with his ability to stay staunch completely shattered.

“I’m fine,” Keith snaps when Shiro asks him if he’s okay.

But Lance can see he’s clearly not. Shiro catches his eye and tilts his head at Keith. Lance nods, taking up watch near Keith when Shiro goes to talk to Princess Allura. He has no idea what Keith’s hearing, but nobody else is able to hear it. Unless he’s got ultrasensitive hearing, then…the noise inside his head is most likely from the trauma. Shiro will tell him later of the concussion Keith sustained during the Lion’s flight. Still, Lance is convinced that this episode is more than just that.

After Keith successfully gets back with his Lion, he seems a lot more at ease. A couple of times Lance catches a glimpse of a small smile playing at his lips.

_They must be bonding._

They all head to the Black Lion’s hangar. Shiro goes straight there on foot, but the others first go back to their own Lions’ hangars before flying down the hangar to meet Shiro. With all four Lions gathered, the massive hangar door dividing them and Black begins to grind open. They all watch, excited, as Black’s paws are revealed, then her legs, her chest…

The door takes its time. Blue seizes the opportunity.

_Before. Also connected._

Lance’s heart skips a beat. Blue. That’s Blue’s voice. She’s talking to him.

_What are you talking about?_

_Also connected. Red paladin. Blue._

_…you were connected with Keith? What, when?_

_Before Blue paladin._

He’s confused. Then Lance hears what sounds like a recording, a memory.

Blue’s voice is faint. _Hold on. Keep holding on. Live._

Keith’s voice, even fainter. _I don’t know…if I can anymore…._

_Live. You must. Live. Live. LIVE!_

The conversation pauses as the Lions register Black’s presence coming online in response to Shiro. Every Lions’ eyes light up. Black stands to her feet and raises her head with a roar. Red, Blue, Green and Yellow all return the call with an answering roar.

_Blue…you saved him. Keith was so close to giving in…and you saved him._

_You saved him._

Blue echoes his own words. Lance blinks. Allura sends out a warning – apparently this Sendak guy has just plunged his ship into a nosedive through the atmospheres.

_Blue, Blue paladin. Both._

_You’re right. We both did. Both of us saved him._

They form Voltron. They win the fight. Finally they can have a bit of a rest.

Keith’s rather removed from everyone the entire evening. There’d been a real team vibe as they all gathered for a meal after defeating Sendak, but it deteriorates fairly quickly. To be fair, all of them are super tired, but Keith is so zoned out, he’s almost a walking zombie. If he comes out of his trance, it’s only to snap at someone.

On first thought, Keith’s irritability is just that: he’s got temper issues and snaps easily; he’s hot-headed and growls a lot; his resting face is a scowl and he avoids eye contact unless someone’s addressing the entire group. Lance only picks up on all this because he’s sitting right beside Keith. Shiro sits on Keith’s other side, but doesn’t seem to think it out of the ordinary.

That’s the problem, right there: Shiro knows Keith and so these behaviours don’t seem strange to him. Lance, Pidge and Hunk _don’t_ know him very well and so it’s easy just to presume that Keith’s always like this, since Shiro – who actually knows him – isn’t making a big deal out of it.

Lance ponders over this as he lies down in his designated room for the night. It’s the subtle things that they’re missing. He focuses, concentrates his thoughts on Blue’s presence. There’s a stirring of acknowledgement inside of him.

_Come on, Blue. Help me out here. What am I missing?_

Blue growls softly, but she doesn’t answer him until the next day when they’re gathered on the bridge.

Keith’s gaze hardens when Coran refers to Pidge as ‘Number Five.’ _They never referred to him by name, only ‘he’ or ‘him’ or ‘you’, as if he didn’t have a name._ They’re trying to form Voltron. Unsurprisingly, Keith doesn’t seem to be in the zone either. _He’s keeping himself withdrawn for a reason: he doesn’t want to be left exposed, vulnerable._ Allura decides to help them by testing the Castle’s defence system. Like everyone else, Keith’s dodging and running for his life. _He’s terrified. He’s running for his life. If his Lion takes too many hits, he’s going to be defenceless. This isn’t good fear – it’s shredding him to pieces fear._ The lasers stop firing, and Lance joins Pidge, Keith and Hunk in returning to the Castle with their Lions and collapsing in the paladin lounge, spent. Keith stays sitting upright, on edge. He’s tense, his arms crossed over his chest. _He’s afraid to relax. If he lets his guard down, he may not be able to escape in time. Then again, he’s all jittery from all the adrenaline that just surged through him from running for his life. He can’t relax but he can’t pretend he’s all good to keep training, either._

To top it off, no one seems to be paying attention to these minor details. It ticks Lance off, not only because of the way Shiro and Allura are getting annoyed at them for simply needing a bit of a break, but because, if it wasn’t for Blue’s perception, Lance would be in the same boat as the rest of them – he wouldn’t be noticing how hard Keith is struggling to keep it together right now.

“During the last attack,” Coran says, “your survival instincts forced you to work as a team. But that will only get you so far.”

Lance watches Keith out of the corner of his eye. His stomach churns – he sees it now. _Survival instincts_ …that’s all Keith is running on at present. It’s the only thing that’s keeping him going.

_He still hasn’t had any time to process anything. The last time he actually knew what was going on, Laurens was preparing to euthanize him._

When they head for the next training exercise in their Lions, Coran gets them to do an expert level drill of nose-diving blind. Lance panics. Blue growls, but it’s not for him. It’s for Keith.

_Oh no, Keith._

Lance digs through his memory of the videos. No, Laurens never covered his eyes with a blindfold, but there was that awful cloth she tied around his head to quieten him. Lance’s heart beats fast.

_I’ve got to distract him!_

Keith’s not one to be seen giving up so easily. He could’ve done what Hunk just did, and pull his Lion up short, but he doesn’t. Lance brings Blue as close to Red as he dares without being able to see.

“You still going, Keith?” he yells through the comms.

“You know it. You?”

“Going? I’m speeding up!”

“Oh yeah?”

Lance is very much aware what a stupid decision he’s just made. He’s going to crash. He has no idea how much distance remains between Blue and impact. But he figures they’re going to crash anyway, so may as well have some fun doing it.

“Must be getting close,” Lance mutters, instinctively feeling the ground rushing up to meet them.

Keith’s voice is terse. “Must be.”

“You gettin' _scared_?”

“I’m not scared!”

IMPACT.

Both Lions are half-buried in a mound of sand. Lance manages to yank Blue free, wincing at the ground-shock. Red is still stuck.

Lance groans. “I win…”

 

“Now,” Coran says over the training deck speakers, “the most important part of paladin training is being able to meld your minds and focus on only one thing: Voltron. Everything else has to fade away.”

Blue sends Lance a warning growl. Those last few words have triggered something for…for Keith.

They’re sitting on the floor in a circle with headsets on. The headsets bring up an image in front of each of them. Everyone has their eyes closed against any interfering thoughts, but Lance keeps his open, watching. Keith’s eyebrows are furrowed. An image of a desert house appears before Keith, Lance’s family before himself. Lance recognises the desert house as the shack they all took shelter in after rescuing Keith from the Biosecurity lab. Iverson had directed them there.

_Refuge. Safety. ‘Remember myself’._

Keith desperately tries to keep his thoughts centred, tries to keep the others from seeing what he’s really struggling to get out of his mind. But the trauma is too recent, the memory of it too raw. The image of the desert house flickers out to be replaced by a random image of white rectangular panels. Lance puzzles over this, trying to work out what he’s seeing.

 _A ceiling._ His heart sinks. _He’s looking at the ceiling of the lab they kept Keith in._

Seeing Pidge having trouble concentrating, too, Lance decides the timing is perfect. Lance purposefully allows his own focus to flicker. He tears off the headset.

“Coran,” he says, fighting to keep his tone steady. Lance jumps to his feet and turns to face the observation deck. “I understand the purpose of this exercise. But is there anything else we can do? We’re all still coming to terms with ditching our lives back on Earth to fight an intergalactic war; we haven’t had enough time to process much at all. I guess what I’m trying to say is, now’s probably not the best time to be roving around instead each other’s heads, y’know what I mean?”

Shiro’s picked up on what he’s doing. His eyes flash as he glances at Keith, trying not to make his concern too obvious for Keith’s sake. He nods at Lance approvingly. Lance nods back and looks over his shoulder at Keith.

The Red paladin wrinkles his nose. His eyes are open wide and he’s staring at the floor, such intensity in his gaze that Lance wouldn’t be surprised if he burnt a hole right through it. His teeth are gritted and he’s breathing fast through his nose like he’s angry. Lance remembers a quote from a movie he once watched with his sister Veronica when she was little. ‘ _Anger is fear on the way out.’_

Between the two Alteans, Coran is definitely the more reasonable of the two. He allows them a break. Before anyone can ask after him, Keith’s gone. Out of the room before anyone can see him cry.

 _Seriously, Keith,_ Lance says in his mind. _You don’t need to hide how much you’re hurting from everyone. We’re here for you. It’s okay not to be okay..._

_…especially after all you’ve been through._

Blue growls in agreement. Lance thinks he’s just making it up, but he also hears another Lion growl alongside Blue: Red.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The film referred to is 'Flicka' :)


	3. S1E4-5 -- Caught in an Explosion

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Space coffee. I wonder what it tastes like? Is there an interplanetary coffee trade? Maybe the Olkari have a plantation or two in their forests...???
> 
> Chapter 3: Fall of the Castle of Lions/Tears of the Balmera :)

Shiro brings two cups of black coffee to the paladin lounge that night. He hands one to Keith before sitting down opposite to him.

“So, uh, with everything that’s been going on, we haven’t really had a chance to catch up, have we?” Shiro takes sip of his coffee, watching Keith closely to gauge how honest he’ll answer to his next question. “How are you doing?”

Keith studies the steam rising from his cup. “I’m fine.”

Inwardly, Shiro grimaces. Talking with this kid about personal matters has never been easier. After what that Laurens lady did to him though, he suspects it’s going to be near impossible now.

“I’m not asking in terms of how your day’s been,” he says quietly. “I’m asking how _you_ are.”

Keith grips the cup handle. “I told you. _I’m fine._ ”

“It might help you if – ”

“ _Shiro.”_

Keith’s expression is feral. Instead of his eyes narrowing like they usually do when he’s irritated, they’re stretched wide in barely contained anger.

“Look, I get what you’re trying to do,” he whispers hoarsely, “but I don’t want to talk about it. Not yet.”

“Alright. I’m sorry.”

When it becomes clear that Shiro’s not going to press any further, Keith gradually stops bristling. An excited squeaking breaks the uncomfortable silence. The space mice. Most often they’re around Allura or Pidge, but it seems they’ve been hanging out with Keith a bit too. He doesn’t seem all that bothered by the mice bounding over to sit on his lap. He ignores them, fixated solely on the space coffee he’s drinking, but Shiro notices the furrow in his brow ease.

It’s good to see Keith’s got some emotional support. Shiro’s not going to be around all the time and Lance…well, though the guy has good intentions and has intervened for Keith a couple of times, Shiro’s a little uncertain at how their bickering is going to fix anything. He’s afraid it might just drive Keith up the wall and make himself withdraw from the group even further. So far he’s been proved incorrect, which comes nothing short of a relief for him, especially as designated team leader...

Shiro finishes his coffee and decides to hit the hay. He bids goodnight to Keith, leaving him to his own in the company of the space mice. Keith doesn’t reply, but Shiro understands that it’s not out of resentment or animosity. He just…needs a bit more time to wrap his head around things.

 

Allura opens the Castle doors to the Arusians.

Keith’s not fazed by the crowds at first, but the moment he lets his mind wander, his hypervigilance intensifies. The Castle doors are wide open; anyone could waltz in and launch an attack. He’s constantly scanning the crowds, watching for any sign of trouble. It quickly gets exhausting, and he knows he’s overreacting. Excusing himself from a half-hearted conversation with one of the Arusians, Keith takes himself off to the bridge. He’s still uncomfortable with the doors being wide open – if he’s on the bridge, he can keep an eye out on the Castle monitors for anything unusual.

Coran is there, talking with Lance.

Lance turns at the sound of the door sliding open. “Oh, hey, Keith.”

“Hey…” Keith tilts his head. “Wait, are you _crying?_ ”

“No! I just…Coran, I think we need to clean this Castle up a bit, don’t you? It’s very dusty.”

Coran chuckles. “Well, I suppose it has been ten thousand years! Oh dear!”

“Whatever, Lance,” Keith smirks.

The half-smile feels a little strange tugging at his lips. Aside from when he’d bonded with Red, the last time he smiled was…

...he can’t actually remember.

“So, Number Four,” Coran says. “How are you settling into your new life as a paladin of Voltron?”

Keith isn’t smiling any longer. “Don’t _ever_ call me that again.”

“What? Number Four?”

Keith’s gaze hardens. His fingers curl into fists. He shifts his weight evenly over both feet.

“Oh dear. Someone woke up an angry yalmore this morn – ”

“Coran,” Lance interrupts. He shakes his head, eyes wide. “Don’t. There’s…some things happened back on Earth that, uh, weren’t very pleasant.” He flashes a wary glance at Keith. Keith’s glaring daggers at Coran. Sharpened daggers. Lance lowers his voice slightly. “It might be best if you don’t call us by numbers. It triggers a few bad memories for us. The kind of memories no one wants to have to think about.”

Keith forces himself to breathe. He’s on the verge of punching this Altean man in the face like he did to Iverson. Red’s on his side; she’s heard the story from Blue. The only thing that’s holding Keith back is Lance.

“Ah, apologies, Keith,” Coran says soberly. “I promise you I will not call you by that again.”

“It’s fine,” Keith mutters. “And thanks. I’d greatly appreciate that.”

Lance lets out a breath. “Alright. Hey, Coran and I were going to go grab a space coffee or something from the kitchen.” He grins and whispers to Keith behind a hand, “I need something to wash that awful nunvil taste out of my mouth.”

Coran raises an eyebrow jokingly. “I heard that.”

Lance frowns. “You Alteans have _super_ weird taste buds, honestly.”

Forcing himself to lose the tension from his shoulders, Keith decides to go along with them. He’s got nothing better to do. Shiro’s outside keeping security post. Keith could do with a distraction from stressing about it himself.

The three of them start making their way off the bridge. The doors open and Pidge’s surveillance robot Rover floats on in. Lance gives it a friendly wave. He pauses to watch Rover pass them. Keith continues after Coran.

“Wait…” Lance murmurs. “Where’s Pidge?”

There’s a beeping sound. Keith is about to turn around when Lance’s hands slam into his shoulders.

“Guys, look out!”

kaBOO – !

Nothing.

 

 

…

….

“…eith. Keith, can you….me?”

His head hurts. There’s a ringing in his ears. Someone’s talking to him, but it’s hard to hear through the ringing.

“…eith! Come on, buddy. Wake up – ah, there you are…”

Keith’s head spins. He cracks his eyes open. It’s dark. The blue light of paladin armour glows above him. He groans.

“Sh’ro…?” he croaks. “What…what’s going on?”

“I-I don’t know. You were caught in some explosion. We came as fast as we – ”

Keith gasps. “Lance.”

He rolls out of Shiro’s arms, searching the darkness with his hands. Stupid, really. He could cut himself on debri or something. Coran lays a hand lightly on Keith’s shoulder – good, Coran’s okay – to keep him from straining himself too much.

Shiro gets to his feet, walking ahead of Keith in the general direction he’s heading for. He comes to abrupt halt, staring at something lying on the floor with shock. Allura’s at Shiro’s side in an instant.

“Lance!”

It’s not the first time Lance has saved his life. This time, however, he got hurt at Keith’s expense. Hurt bad. Knocked unconscious in the explosion and comatose as a result.

_I’m not worth it, Lance. You should’ve just made a run for it – for your own life. You didn’t need to take measures to save mine._

_Did_ , Red growls. _Didn’t have to, but did._

Keith blinks, stunned. Red makes it sound like if Lance hadn’t saved him, she would have broken out of her hangar to do it herself. Keith’s unsure what to think about that. Shiro sends him out with Allura to check on the Arusian village before he has time to mull it over.

 

The attack at the village turns out to be a hoax. What a dumb mistake – now the Castle defences are thinned. Shiro’s standing guard alone back there while Pidge…well, who knows where Pidge is. She hasn’t been seen for a good while now. Keith and Allura sprint back up the hill. They’re almost back at the Castle when a great purple particle barrier drops down from the Castle spires.

They’re too late; they’re locked out.

Keith slams his hands on the force field. “No!”

They’re in there. Except for Hunk, every single one of his rescuers are in there. Now should be his turn to rescue _him_ , but there’s this stupid particle barrier in the way. Shiro’s in there, too, captured again after only a few days out of captivity. Keith can’t bear to think how Shiro’s coping in there. Sendak had better not be doing anything to harm him, or Lance, or else Keith’s going to hunt him down no matter what it costs him.

He’s beginning to see red when a voice comes through on the comms.

“Keith. Can you hear me?”

“Pidge, is that you?” Keith’s heart pounds. “Where are you?”

She’s whispering. “I’m inside the Castle. Sendak has taken over and he’s preparing for launch. He’s got Lance and Shiro.”

Keith grits his teeth. _How could I have been so foolish as to not have seen this coming?!_

“Pidge,” Allura says, “listen. If they’ve started the launch sequence, then we don’t have much time before lift-off to stop it.”

“What do I have to do?”

 

It’s a nerve-racking wait. Pidge is doing the best she can to screw things up for Sendak, the mice are doing the best they can. But Keith, armed with a sword at the ready and a sheer will to fight, is trapped outside the arena, so to speak, unable to do anything to help at all. Allura’s just as distressed as he is.

The sun rises. All they can do is hope.

 

Pidge gets them in.

The particle barrier raises. Keith and Allura sprint.

 

When Keith sees Pidge caught in Sendak’s claws, he’s nearly plunged into despair. Then Lance shoots Sendak square in the back and that’s enough to turn the tide.

They win. Thanks to Pidge, thanks to Lance, they win.

_And I’m still alive. I’m still alive and not disposed of somewhere back on Earth._

Red growls in respect for Lance. _Brave._

_Yeah. A jerk, but a courageous jerk._

While Pidge tends to Shiro, Keith walks over to Lance. He reaches out his hand. Lance takes it, but isn’t strong enough to pull himself up, so Keith crouches down beside him instead.

“Lance. Are you okay? Relatively speaking, I guess.”

Lance answers that with a crooked smile. “We did it,” he says. “We _are_ a good team.”

A chord of voices – a triad made up of Red, Lance and _Blue_ – strikes Keith in the heart.

_Not alone._

_We are a team. You don’t have to fight this solo._

_Not alone anymore._

Judging by the expectant look in his eyes, Lance hears the chord, too. Something warm stirs in Keith’s heart, something that starts the thaw of all the pent up emotions he’s kept locked away since the trauma. Keith acknowledges Lance with a grateful smile.

_Thanks._


	4. S1 (towards the end) -- Flashbacks and Balmeran Coffee

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Towards the end of Season 1 :)

_Fire. Fight. Forget._

Her paladin is fierce. Just as she requires of him, he relies more on instinct that skill alone. He burns with an unfenced fire of fight-or-flight, and Red greatly appreciates this. But she learns, upon a long awaited reunion of quintessence with the other Lions - this fire, though meant to ensure his survival, is actively damaging him.

_Restrained. Smothered. Strained._

As Red’s bond with her paladin grows stronger, she begins to understand what she’s seen in Blue’s mindscape. All the Lions feel it; they are all made of the same quintessence, so when combined to form Voltron, their experiences become one and the same. Blue was there when Keith went through what he did. Now the other Lions see it too.

Blue’s urgency. Her reaching out.

Green’s empathy. She grasps how difficult it was for Blue to reach Red’s paladin.

Yellow’s approval. She respects Keith’s courage to dig deep.

Black’s respect. Her admiration for Keith regarding his bravery to face tomorrow.

Red’s anger. They all feel her anger and share in her desire to protect her paladin.

Through Blue’s past, loose bond with him, Red feels the moment when Keith Kogane’s fire flickers, when it starts to get low and the embers begin to die. She feels Blue’s determination, her bombarding him with one word, over and over: _live._ She feels the moment when his fire is all but dead, yet those embers in his soul flare with his response: _okay._

_My paladin._

She appreciates the ferocity of his emotions. She’s fuelled by the adrenaline that flows through him. She’s angered by the harm that was brought to her paladin, and Red vows never to let such harm come to him again.

 

Normally, as soon as Keith’s head hits the pillow he’s lights out. Not anymore.

He hates lying on his back. After several minutes of tossing and turning, he’ll eventually settle on his side with his knife unsheathed and within arm’s reach. He fixes his eyes on it, tells himself he’s safe. The knife’s between him and the door; the second he hears that door open, he can wake up, grab his knife and fight them. He’ll run that thought through his head until he _knows_ it, then – and only then – he’ll close his eyes.

That’s when the flashbacks start.

It doesn’t matter how tired he is. It doesn’t matter how badly he wants to sleep, nor if those memories were even on his mind in the first place. They come, no matter what. It’s more exhausting than not sleeping.

The flashbacks are nightmares of their own. He sees the panels of the white ceiling. He feels the cloth being tied around his mouth, the doctor’s great big hands clamped down on his shoulders. He hears Laurens, her voice monotone and bored, as she talks to both the nurse and the medtech about preparing for his euthanasia. He tastes the thick air of the sedative, remembers the pain in his chest during the oxygen deprivation test.

Just like that he’s wide awake, fingers curled around the hilt of his blade, shaking.

Lying there only makes things worse. Keith gets up, still fully clothed. He doesn’t change anymore, only takes off his jacket, boots and belt before bed. If he’s caught unprepared, escaping isn’t going to easy and hiding isn’t going to pleasant. Anything could happen; he needs to be ready, at all times.

Unable to sleep, again, for the fourth night in a row, Keith leaves his room and wanders down the dim Castle halls to the kitchen.

Between Shiro, Pidge and Keith, the space coffee stash has started getting low. Fortunately, Hunk’s Balmeran friend Shay scored them a generous new batch of a Balmeran equivalent. Pidge, being curious, tried some a couple of nights ago and screwed up her face at the viscosity of it. Shiro’s since given it a go and isn’t all that fussed on it either. Keith’s preferences are the same as theirs, but the Balmeran ‘coffee’ has the same effect as Coran’s Olkari stuff, so he’s quite content to stick with this and leave the better Olkari coffee to the others. If he were honest, though, it’s more a case of self-deprecating shame than preference of taste.

It’s not just the coffee. He’s so emotionally unbalanced, he blames himself for every mistake he makes in both training and on the field. He blames himself for his difficulty concentrating and remembering uncomplicated things, such as the very, _very_ important fact that the Balmera they visited is a living creature. Keith would’ve ended up cutting it with his bayard had Lance not dragged him back.

 _I’m letting the team down,_ he thinks. _I can’t follow orders, I can’t work as a team without_ arguing _with someone…there’s got to be something I can do to make up for that._

Keith trains. Day and night. Alone – just him and the Altean gladiator.

Sometimes Shiro joins him, but more than once Keith’s vision has doubled. Instead of Shiro in his black and white paladin armour, he sees the doctor in his labcoat coming for him. Slipping into fight-or-flight mode, Keith either freezes up or unleashes a raging flurry of attacks. What happens if Shiro isn’t on his toes one day, or if he doesn’t manage to block and parry Keith’s attacks in time?

_Too much risk._

When such an episode happens for the fourth time, he’s fighting Lance. If the guy hadn’t thought quickly and stunned him, Keith might well have accidently chopped his hand off.

 

Keith doesn’t sleep. He has trouble controlling his fits of anger.

He forgets his own name.

On a number of occasions, someone’s called his name and it’s taken him a good five seconds to fully register it’s him they’re calling. He can’t remember who ‘Keith’ is. For sure, he knows it’s him, he knows it’s his body, but his spirit feels like it belongs elsewhere.

_Keith Kogane._

His heart jumps. Tonight’s second cup of Balmeran coffee nearly tips over onto the floor.

_Red paladin: Keith Kogane. You. My paladin._

_Red?_

_Keith._

Her voice is a rumbling purr-like growl in his chest. It fills him with greater warmth than the space coffee in his hands.

 _My paladin._ Red growls. ‘ _It’s me, Keeeeith. I’m your… I am your paladin!’_

Keith’s face burns with embarrassment. “Hey! You don’t get to make fun of me. You’re the one who wouldn’t answer me!”

_‘Hey! I’m bonding with you!’_

“Come on, that’s not fair.”

_Neither is considering yourself not worthy of being my paladin._

_What?_ “I don’t – ”

“What’s the matter, Keith? Cat got your tongue?”

Keith flinches. The coffee spills this time.

He whips around to glare at Pidge, who’s standing in the doorway without her glasses on. She smirks at his reaction as she trots over. She’s headed for the two coffee jars, he knows that, but Keith can’t help but take a step back. It’s not a voluntary action. He worries Pidge will tease him for it, or mutter something sarcastic regarding his being over-cautious. But she doesn’t, and Keith relaxes.

“Talking to Red, huh?” Pidge asks, unscrewing the lid on the Olkari coffee.

Keith blinks. There’s spilt Balmeran coffee slipping through his gloveless fingers but he doesn’t notice.

“How…?”

Pidge shrugs. “Figured. Lance talks out loud to Blue all the time.”

“Oh…makes sense.”

The Balmeran coffee’s slightly more acidic than Earth coffee; it starts to sting Keith’s hands, causing him to notice the liquid dripping from the cup to his hand to the floor. He reaches past Pidge to grab a cloth on the benchtop, wiping the cup and his hand with it. He pauses, considering.

“Hey…Pidge?”

“Hmm?”

“Do you know where the tablecloths and dishclothes are? Or a mop?”

Pidge glances over at the dark puddle at Keith’s feet. She nods at the cloth in his hand. “Just use that. Mop’s a bit overkill, don’t you think?”

She grins at him, leaving her half-prepared Olkari coffee for a minute to fetch a clean dishcloth from one of the lower cupboards on the other side of the kitchen. Keith allows himself a small smile as he drops the dishcloth he’s holding onto the floor, wiping up the small mess with his foot.

 _A mop._ The visualisation makes him laugh at himself inwardly. _I’m so stupid._

“So what were you and your Lion talking about?”

Keith’s face falls. The question’s so casual, but the answer’s so…not.

“I, uh…” he falters, unsure of how to cover himself without making it too obvious he’s lying. Forget it. Pidge isn’t that dumb. “Nothing, really.”

The hot water’s poured into her cup. She takes a tentative sip, grins with brief satisfaction and then puts her cup down, folds her arms and faces Keith square on.

“You’re trying to convince a Holt that the Earth is flat,” Pidge retorts. “Ain’t gonna work, mate. Let me tell you that now.” One glance at her coffee, and it’s back snuggled in her hands. “You’re a terrible liar, Keith. The Lions don’t talk to anyone unless it’s serious.”

_Got to redirect the conversation._

Keith raises an eyebrow. “You just said Lance talks to Blue all the time.”

“Yeah,” Pidge says dryly, “he does. _She_ does, about you.”

... _what?_

“Hey. You’re not the only one who talks to Red. Blue does too, you know.”

Keith has to bite back the urge to say something stupid. “You’re the Green paladin. How do you know that?”

“Because Lance talks to me, and when we last formed Voltron, I could feel Red.” Pidge takes a long sip of coffee, her eyes gleaming as she watches him. “Voltron, duh. Five units becoming one? That mind-melding exercise? Well, the Lions are connected as well, you know. Green’s not exempt from that.”

The Balmeran coffee’s gone lukewarm. There’s still about one-fifth left in the cup. Keith swirls it around, distractedly. Or rather, trying to appear so.

“Keith, do you want to talk about it? Something’s bothering you, I can tell.” Pidge’s voice softens. “Obviously Red can too.”

 _Shoot._ Keith spins around so that his back’s to her. He slams the cup down on the bench, but keeps it gripped in his hand. He tightens his fingers around the handle until his knuckles turn white and the cup starts shaking.

“Keith?”

Red’s not saying anything. She’s stepping back on purpose, he knows.

“You okay?”

His eyes sting. He doesn’t trust his legs to get him steady, so he lets go of the cup, wraps his arms around himself and slides down the cupboard doors until he’s on his knees, bent over himself. He ducks his head, hides behind the black hair that falls over his face.

Pidge is at his side mere seconds after his shoulders start to tremble. She doesn’t say anymore, just touches a warm hand to his arm and lays an arm across his shoulders. Keith drops into a ball, tucked in on himself and leaning heavily against the cupboard doors. The more he tries to keep quiet, the worse the shaking gets. Pidge shifts beside him and then she’s rubbing her hand in gentle circles over his back, and the dam walls inside of him just break.

 _You are_ more _than worthy of being my paladin._


	5. S1E11-S2E3 -- Pressing Onwards/Truth About Iverson

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thanks everyone for your comments and kudos!! <3 
> 
> Here's Chapter 5! (Season 1, Episode 11: The Black Paladin; Season 2, Episode 1: Across the Universe; a brief mention of Season 2, Episode 3: Shiro's Escape.)

Zarkon.

Keith ignores Coran’s warnings. It’s worth the risk. He has the chance to put an end to the Galra Empire – he has to take it. If he takes out Zarkon now, then – _Laurens sits beside him with her headphones in while Keith’s ears are exposed to the hideous screeching playing at full volume through the room’s sound system. He desperately tries to shut it out but he can’t, his hands are tied. He tugs at the material binding his wrists to the railing on either side of him –_

 _Focus!_ He thrusts the control levers forward.

Zarkon’s got the Black bayard – _Shiro’s_ bayard. When the smoke from Red’s laser beam clears, Keith sees that the bayard’s morphed into a giant, Galra-symbol shaped shield.

_He hadn’t acted quickly enough. If he’d been faster and more onto it, if he’d fought harder, he might’ve been able to escape Iverson’s grasp and evade getting captured so easily. He’s not going to make that same mistake twice._

Coran was right: Zarkon’s too powerful. Maybe he should’ve heeded the warning. But he’s the Red Lion’s paladin for a reason. If he stops to _think_ like he did when he got caught by Laurens, he’ll miss his one and only chance to act.

A laser cannon appears on Red’s back. _If Keith had knife on him back there, he would’ve been able to escape. How stupid of him to let it get confiscated so easily!_

Keith’s no match for Zarkon, even with the Red Lion and her new laser cannon. It shocks Keith how strong he is – he’s besting a _Lion._ Not a single one of Red’s attacks have managed to make a mark on that guy. Keith stays stubbornly locked in combat, though. Fleeing wouldn’t just be being chicken, it would also mean exposing his, and Red’s, back to the Galra emperor, and that’s ten times more dangerous than this fighting him head on is.

That is, until there’s no fight left in him. Zarkon’s last blow has rendered Red immobile.

Keith yanks at the control levers. _He tugs at the restraints holding him down._ Zarkon’s coming, bayard morphed into a blade like a crafted piece of shrapnel. _The medtech places the mask over his face and fastens the straps. The sedative enters his system._ Red’s not responding. _Keith sees Laurens preparing the euthanizing substance, but the anaesthetic is already kicking in._

His life is going to end in five seconds.

 

Black intervenes. Zarkon is blasted. Black seizes the opportunity to scoop the Red Lion up in her claws.

Shiro’s voice comes through the comms. “I got you, buddy.”

Keith doesn’t reply. His eyes are stretched wide as he stares into space. The control levers shake in his hands and his chest heaves as he struggles to calm the panic.

_Alive._

What if Pidge hadn’t been able to crack the code? What if Lance hadn’t noticed something was off about his disappearance? What if Hunk hadn’t believed them and told Commander Iverson, and then...?!

_Here now._

Keith clenches his jaw, inhales sharply through his nose. He forces himself to focus. The red lighting of the cockpit. The plate of armour protecting his chest. Space shifting to Red’s hangar outside the windscreen. The shape of the control lever handles his hands are wrapped around.

He’s fine. He’s saved. He’s not dead yet.

Then Zarkon’s witch decides to mess with the integrity of Allura’s wormhole and all of a sudden the Lions are swept out of their hangars in the turbulence.

 

\---

\------ 

Shiro’s outnumbered.

When Keith first laid eyes on the situation, he’d seriously contemplated just rushing in and slashing at the creatures like hell. This time his instincts cautioned him against the idea, instead leading him to Black.

_If you’re anything like Red, then you’ll be willing to do things you usually wouldn’t to protect your paladin – including letting me pilot you just this once._

Black’s been quiet this whole time. Shiro has not. Keith shoots a glance over his shoulder and his fear skyrockets. Shiro's completely surrounded. Even if Keith were to run over to him now, he’d be too late; there’s no way Shiro can keep all those creatures at bay on his own.

 _Please, Black. You’re the only option. You’re_ Shiro’s _only option._

A powerful presence, distance yet alarmingly close at the same time, penetrates through Keith’s fear. It settles all around him, harmonising with his bond with Red. Black’s eyes flash. She opens her mouth to let him in.

There’s something empowering and majestic about being seated in Black, but in his heart Keith knows that he could never take up this mantle which is rightfully Shiro’s. His place is with Red. Just this once, however, he’ll forge this bond with Black. For Shiro.

_For Shiro._

While Shiro and Keith wait for a rescue, they set up camp away from the ravines those creatures inhabit. Shiro’s wound is getting worse by the hour. He’s strong, this guy, but Keith knows that once his condition deteriorates beyond his pain threshold like it has now, Shiro’s not going to last much longer.

Too anxious to sit in silence, Keith decides to ask the question that’s been on his mind.

“Hey, Shiro. Back on Earth… when you were briefly going over how you found me…you never did say how _you_ came to find me. You didn’t walk all the way over, did you?”

Keith knows it’s something Shiro’s been intentionally keeping from him. He doesn’t like it. It makes him wary of what other information Shiro might be hiding from him. He braces himself for a white lie, or a half-covered up truth, but after a quick assessment of Keith’s expression and body language, Shiro relents.

“Iverson. He came and got me.”

Keith bristles. If only he could describe how badly he wants to punch that guy in the face a second time. ‘ _Where did you get this knife, Cadet?’_ and _‘You have him?’_ Iverson…

“Before you get more worked up,” Shiro interrupts, “you should know that if it wasn’t for Iverson, you wouldn’t have made it.”

“No. I don’t believe it.”

“He was kept out of the loop, Keith. You never saw him during…during the tests, did you?”

Keith narrows his eyes. That part is true.

Shiro nods at Keith’s hesitation. “Pidge, Hunk and Lance found out what was going on under the radar before he did. He caught them looking at the files, teamed up with them, gave them his ID card and passcode so they could you out of there. He didn’t wait around, either. You were rescued less than hour after the four of them had a plan in place.”

Now he understands why Shiro kept this information from him. It’s a lot to process, emotionally. There’s no way he would’ve even considered believing it if they’d told him all this back on Earth when he’d woken up from the anaesthetic. He would’ve gone straight into denial. _Further_ into denial.

“He’d been trying to check up on Laurens’ work,” Shiro says, “but she wouldn’t let him see you or even access the research files.”

“Research…files?”

Keith instantly regrets asking. He has a feeling this kind of thing was better off _not_ knowing about.

“Laurens kept a folder of compiled data, analysis and video files. Restricted access. Pidge managed to break the code.”

So all that time he was suffering, choking on lack of oxygen and writhing with the pain of a ferocious five day stomach ache…they were filming the entire thing – like they enjoyed watching him suffer so much that they caught it on tape. Keith feels the blood drain from his face.

“Once Pidge had access,” Shiro continues, “they knew where you were being held. Thanks to Iverson, your rescue happened before it was too late. Lance went in to get you while Hunk and Pidge ran off to get your hovercraft ready for a QTO, and Iverson came out in his vehicle to get me. Actually, he didn’t know it was me. But he’d seen what they did to you and wasn’t having any more of it. He told me the story on the way. He warned me it was bad, but…I guess it didn’t really sink in until I saw the videos for myself.” Shiro looks Keith dead in the eye. “What they did to you was awful, Keith. Inhumane. _Wrong._ You know that, right?”

Keith is silent. He shrugs, decides the wood they’re burning is very interesting. Beside him, Shiro struggles to sit upright.

“It’s hard, I know.” Shiro’s voice is getting thinner by the second, but he carries on talking. “Just...don’t ever feel like you’re alone out here; the whole team’s behind you – never forget that.” Shiro pauses to cough a couple of times. “I mean that Keith…if…if I don’t make it out of here, I…I want _you_ to lead Voltron. They’ll follow you. I know they will.”

Keith stares at him incredulously. _Why would you make_ me _the leader?_ “Stop saying things like that. You’re going to make it.”

_You’d better make it. There’s no way I can handle losing you a second time._

Shiro gives him a pained smile. He’s definitely not in good shape. If Allura and Coran don’t find them soon, then –

A wormhole tears a blue hole in the sky.

Keith’s relief is immense.

 

Hearing about Iverson allows Keith to gain a bit more clarity on what happened. It’s not an easy thing to wrap his head around, but it helps to know that if Laurens hadn’t put such high measures in place, there might’ve been people willing to help him - if they’d known about it, like Lance, Pidge and Hunk eventually did. Keith can never thank those three enough, though it pains him that he can never find the words to verbally do so.

_I guess the best I can do is to keep on living._

Shiro’s right in that he’s got their support; they’ve got his back, even if he doesn’t realise it. Shiro’s always looking out for him, and Keith knows that despite their constant bickering, Lance is doing the same. Pidge is really sensitive the emotional impact his trauma caused him. Keith realises she must’ve been the first to see the videos, since she was the one to unlock the folder. It must’ve been hard on her, and on Hunk, the big softie. Especially Lance – he was the one who physically got Keith out of there, so he probably saw a fraction of Lauren’s treatment of him first-hand.

As for leading the group…

Keith shoves that thought aside. It’s not going to happen. Shiro’s their leader, he’s their Black paladin, and Keith will save him as many times as it takes to ensure he’s safe as can be in this war. Shiro’s been through enough. He deserves no less.

 

The confusion is just beginning to clear when Ulaz shows up, carrying a design of weapon which is far,  _far_ too familiar for comfort: a ceremonial blade which, aside from shape, looks just like his knife. 

Laurens might have been right after all.


	6. S2E8+aftermath

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> It's exam season. Apologies if my writing's not up to its usual standard for this series.
> 
> At any rate,  
> Chapter 6: Season 2, Episode 8 (The Blade of Marmora)/post-episode...part 1.

Something’s off about Keith, and Hunk isn’t the only one noticing it. Lance and Pidge are also distracted from the main conversation, their attention caught by Shiro’s frequent and not-so-discrete glances in Keith’s direction.

 _If Shiro’s worried about Keith,_ Hunk thinks, _then something_ must’ve _happened to him. Red wouldn’t go ballistic like that over nothing._

At first glance, he looks fine. It’s just Keith being Keith, standing casually behind this tall Kolivan guy with his helmet tucked beneath his left arm. His eyes are fixed on Kolivan…wait. No, they’re not. He’s just staring absent-mindedly in Kolivan’s direction. That’s when Hunk notices he’s got this glazed look on his face – Keith’s not even listening to a single word that’s being said.

Hunk’s brain tries hard to decipher what that expression means. Maybe he’s just tired. Shiro and Keith were at the Base for hours doing whatever kind of negotiating they were doing; they must be exhausted. Or perhaps it’s one of Keith’s panic-anxiety attack thingamajigs, which anything could’ve triggered and set off. _But his body language is less uptight and more…strained._ Back to the exhaustion, which would explain the distant look on Keith’s face. _But then, did Red’s panicking or Kolivan give him a fright or something?_ _Why does he look so guarded, alarmed?_

Being closer than the rest of them, Hunk decides he’ll check up on him himself. He hasn’t been paying any attention to the Allura-Kolivan exchange anyways; he’ll have missed so much he’ll be lost if he tries to join back in now. May as well follow through with his side-tracking.

“Hey…Keith?” he asks quietly as he sidles over to the spaced out Red paladin. “You feeling okay?”

Keith’s eyes flicker toward him, shadowed. “‘m fine.”

Hunk frowns. He’s not convinced. Definitely not convinced. Keith’s face is paler than usual, almost anxious. There’s patches of blue beginning to appear here and there, and it’s not just from lack of sleep – there’s bruises lining his jaw, splotches of blue-purple on the side of his head. What’s the most alarming, though, is that he looks how Hunk feels when he’s about to be sick.

_Definitely not a good sign._

“Alright. Just go easy on it, ‘kay.”

Keith glances away, licks his lips. “Yeah,” he whispers.

Hunk gives him the thumbs up and pats him on the back. Keith’s helmet clatters to the floor.

It’s not even a hard hit, but Keith crumples the moment Hunk’s hand lands between his shoulders. He’s on his knees in an instant, hunched forward with most of his weight leaned on his left arm. He’s shaking.

 _He was barely even standing upright,_ Hunk realises as he crouches down beside him. _And he’s been like this the whole time?!_

Five feet away, Allura’s anger flares. “I ask that you’d kindly inform us, _Kolivan,_ ” she says cooly. “What exactly happened to cause the Red Lion to attack your base?”

Kolivan’s expression is steely. He doesn’t respond, probably taking slight offense to Allura’s attitude. Though Hunk’s a little wary of the big guy himself, he can’t help but side with him on this one. Hunk’s talked about it with Lance often, the amount of casual racism he’s had to deal with in his first year at the Garrison. It wasn’t always bad, but there were some guys who had the same attitude Allura does regarding foreigners and that has never sat well with him.

“Those matters are for Keith to disclose on his own accord,” Kolivan says when Allura’s icy silence holds. “

Allura switches her gaze to Keith. Her voice is still as fierce. “For the sake of all of us here, please do tell us Keith.”

Keith shakes his head, his brow creased. “It’s nothing,” he whispers.

“Speak up. None of us can hear you.”

Keith dry-wretches. Hunk reaches out to lay a hand on his shoulder. Keith sees the incoming motion and slaps Hunk’s arm aside, even as his body convulses. Nothing’s coming out of his mouth, just saliva, but the moment Keith’s weight shifts onto his right arm he cries out and –

_I-is that blood?!_

On the red shoulder pad of his Voltron uniform, there’s a dark patch peeking out from under the chest plate. Not sweat-damp darkened – blood-stained darkened.

Keith fights off anyone who comes close. Hunk stays rigid as he is. Both Lance and Pidge rush over but they’re swatted away before they can lay a hand on him. Even _Shiro_ isn’t allowed close. Keith snarls at him, full of contempt. At this, everyone takes a step back. Everyone but Hunk, because from this angle he can see how the light of Red’s hangar catches in Keith’s eyes.

He’s terrified. Stricken. Wounded, both inside and out.

 “Guys, he’s freaking out. Give him space.”

By now, Keith’s given up on acting fine. He’s collapsed on the cold floor, shivering. He hisses between his teeth in pain, eyes wide with fight-or-flight. It’s not just the hidden shoulder wound that’s causing him grief, it’s the hidden torment of what’s been done to him that’s got him so riled up. Hunk desperately wants to carry Keith off to get medical attention, but he knows without a doubt that that’s the very thing Keith’s afraid off right now: doctors.

History repeats itself. Keith isn’t taking his chances.

 

Hunk, Lance and Pidge stay with Keith.

It’s stalemate until he calms down enough to let them touch him. Acting mediator, Shiro takes Allura, Coran, Kolivan and another Blade named Antok up to the bridge. As soon as Allura’s out of the hangar, Keith blinks, his guard dropping a slight bit.

“D-don’t let her take me,” he whispers. “I-I can’t…don’t let her take me away!”

Lance tries a reassuring smile. “Keith, buddy.”

He shakes his head. “No, if she finds out…she’s gonna change her mind and…”

“And what?” Pidge prompts.

But Keith’s already fading. He doesn’t answer any of their following questions, and within the next two minutes his eyes are slipping shut. After four minutes, they don’t open again.

Pidge swears. “If that quiznaking Galra so much as – ”

“Hold up, Pidge.” Hunk waits until she actually stops. “We don’t know for sure what went on over there; we can’t go blaming Kolivan.”

Lance huffs. “Well, he seemed to know what’s up with Keith. Doesn’t that count for something?”

“Yeah, but Shiro knows too,” he counters. “Let’s not go pointing fingers just yet.” He looks down at Keith, now unconscious between them. “Let’s just get him patched up, do what we need to, then address the ‘what happened’ later. Agree?”

Pidge grumbles but doesn’t raise any points of conjecture. Lance makes his decision based off Pidge’s reaction and shrugs.

“Alright then.”

Now that Keith’s no longer attacking them, Pidge and Lance can get close. Hunk takes Keith’s left arm, leans down and slings it over his shoulder. Pidge props him up so that Lance can ease his right arm out from under him. But when they go to lift his arm over Lance’s shoulder, Keith’s breath hitches. Hunk remembers the supposed shoulder injury. He checks the material of the red shoulder pad – the blood stain is growing bigger.

“Guys, just a heads up. We need to hurry.”

“And where exactly are we taking him to?”

“Good question.”

Lance is thinking on the same wavelength now, too. “The medical bay will be fine while he’s out. We’ll just need to make sure we don’t muck around in case he wakes up and freaks out.”

Pidge crosses her arms over her chest. “You realise he might still be able to hear us?”

“Hey, Keith.” Lance nudges Keith with his head. “You hear us, buddy?”

Keith’s face is slack. His head lolls on his chest. _Definitely out._ He gives no indication he’s heard anything they’ve said. Still, they’d best watch what they say around him just in case little snippets filter through his unconsciousness and reorganise themselves into an out-of-context mess.

When Hunk had seriously considered carrying Keith, he hadn’t expected him to be this heavy. Maybe it’s just because he’s a dead weight hanging between him and Lance. Maybe it’s because there’s a heavy sense of foreboding creeping up on him that he doesn’t like, like some sort of revelation just waiting to jump out and ruin everyone’s lives – especially Keith’s.

_Is that why Kolivan didn’t say anything? Why could’ve been so unsettling that even Shiro decided it’s best to remain an elephant in the room for the time being?_

They lie Keith down on a bed in the med bay. Lance reminds them of the videos and that they need to work quickly. He and Hunk send Pidge on clean clothes run while they get Keith out of his paladin armour. The armour is fine, but trying to get his under-armour flight suit off him is more than tricky.

Hunk groans. “Argh, it’s like trying to get that jacket of yours on him all over again.”

“’That jacket’?” Lance pauses in repositioning himself so that he can both keep Keith in his arms and peel the suit off his shoulders. “It’s not just any old jacket, Hunk. It’s my favourite one. Don’t insult my favourite jacket, Hunk.”

The mirthless joking around stops as soon as they see the wound. Hunk has to look away before he loses the snack he had a couple of hours ago. He manages to keep it together enough to help Lance get Keith’s arms free of the sleeves and roll the flight suit down to his waist. Lance keeps him slumped forward in his arms while they assess the damage.

The wound is bad. It’s still bleeding sluggishly, fresh blood painting a second coat of red over Keith’s shoulder. Lance finds some gloves for both of them. Hunk steels himself, forces himself to look at it without throwing up, without letting the queasiness overcome him.

“Come on, Hunk,” Lance says. “You’ve got to do this. For Keith.”

He nods, but can’t suppress the shudder. It proves too much and Hunk has to step away, even just the sight of all the bruises littering Keith's body. Fortunately Pidge shows up then, albeit furious when she realises Keith was actually beaten up by the Blades, and she’s willing to fill in for him.

Keith doesn’t utter a sound the whole time Pidge is prodding his shoulder. Hunk’s stomach churns at this more than it does at the sight of the bloodied cloth in Pidge’s hands. He wonders how much blood Keith’s lost and how on earth he was still standing up straight in this condition for so long.

Before she dresses the wound and bandages it up, Pidge takes another cloth and orders Hunk to fetch her some hot water. He does. Lance readjusts his grip on Keith. Both guys are surprised when Pidge dunks the cloth in the hot water and starts wiping Keith’s back with it, proceeding to wash the sweat off his arms, chest and torso, too. She doesn’t even seem the least bit bothered that she’s a girl…washing a guy’s body…

“No, I’m not phased.” Pidge pauses, glaring at Lance and Hunk. “Keith’s like a brother to me. I would do this for Matt; I’m doing it for him.”

Of course that’s as far as she goes: enough so that the bandaging can go on clean skin and so that Keith doesn’t feel like a complete mess when he wakes up. She gives his hair a quick wash, too.

“What do you think it was?” Lance wonders aloud. “Did they do something to him?”

Pidge grunts. “Obviously.”

“Hmm, I don’t know,” Hunk says. “Neither Shiro nor Keith were reacting to Kolivan – they were reacting to Allura.”

“Just saying,” Pidge says dryly. “That wound didn’t tear itself open on its own.”

“No, but what I’m saying is, whatever happened over there, Allura’s probably the one who’s going to react the most when she hears it. Like, bad consequences kind of reaction. Did you see the way Keith looked at her?”

Lance frowns. “I thought he was just having a panic attack. Seeing Laurens or something.”

“Unless Keith turns out to be Galra," Pidge retorts, "I can’t think of anything that would set Allura off like you’re saying Hunk.” She has the gauze in place and is now working the bandaging over Keith’s shoulder and around his chest. “It must’ve been something Kolivan said before they left Red.”

“But that doesn’t explain why Keith looked so freaked out, Pidge,” Hunk argues. “I saw him, guys. He was _scared_.”

“Then what was it?”

Hunk sighs. “Who knows? Guess we’re just going to have to wait until Keith’s awake before we find out.”

 

Keith’s feverishly warm. Hunk and Lance pull the rest of the suit off him and change him into his red swimming shorts. Pidge waits outside with a blanket she’s fetched until they’re finished.

Hunk carries him this time. They’ve wrapped him up in the blanket – _taking precautions_ , as Lance had put it – and taking him back to his room. It’s the best place for Keith to wake up in, considering his recent trauma. They all know Coran will ask why they’re not using a healing pod, but all three of them are confident in Shiro’s ability to convince the two Alteans that a traumatised kid could do without any induced nightmares if there are other alternatives. It means that it’ll take Keith longer to heal, but it’s not just the physical wounds which need attending to and between the three of them, Pidge, Hunk and Lance agree that the wounds caused by trauma are the ones that take priority.

They do what they did at the desert hut: they keep Keith upright, not lying him down. Hunk sits down on the bed and the three of them carefully manoeuvre him so that he’s propped up beside Hunk. Pidge scrambles up on the bed next to him, snuggling into Keith’s other side. Lance heads out to find some more blankets.

Keith’s paladin armour is all still in a heap in the med bay where they left it, but Pidge had found his knife in the pile and decided to take it up to Keith’s room with them. She’s found the sheath already. Now that it’s unlikely to damage anyone, she takes Keith’s hand in hers and curls his fingers loosely around the hilt. The familiar touch of the knife’s hilt must connect deeply with Keith, as his fingers twitch.

It’s actually the start of a nightmare.

Hunk feels Keith stiffen next to him. Of course, Pidge feels it too. They glance at each other in worry. They call out Keith’s name but he doesn’t hear them. His head shifts on Hunk’s shoulder, a sharp jerking motion. Pidge tries stroking his hair, still slightly damp from having been washed, but if anything, it only upsets Keith more.

They’re starting to worry when Lance comes back with an armful of blankets. His face creases in concern at Keith’s flinching form. He dumps the blankets in front of Pidge, thinking. Then Lance’s face lights up.

“Hang on. I think I’ve got an idea…”

He returns a couple of minutes later with Pidge’s headphones. Handing them to Hunk to fit over Keith’s ears, Lance scrolls through the playlists on his music playback device and considers a finalised three different playlists before picking one of them. Hunk can’t read what it says, but it’s some kind of instrumental compilation.

“I listen to this when I’m missing home,” Lance murmurs. “Which is…a lot, actually. Anyways, it helps me sleep.”

It seems to help a little, but the nightmare rages on.

It’s distressing, the sounds Keith makes. It’s too close to the whimpers they heard in the videos. They’ve tried waking him, but any response they get is smothered by the fever washing over him.

All they can do is stay with him, make sure he’s not alone when he wakes.

Lance agrees to keep Keith company while Pidge satisfies her curiosity of what’s happening on the bridge and Hunk reassures Shiro, Allura and Coran that Keith’s fine. Mostly fine, anyways. The bridge is a busy scene of intel-sharing, but it appears that nothing more has been said of what happened back at the Blade of Marmora base.

_What on earth happened to you, Keith? What kind of fight did you get yourself into?_

More concerning, though, is the unknown reason why the brave Red paladin had seemed so _frightened_ before.  

 

In the nightmare, it’s not Laurens. It’s Allura.

The hour her tests confirm Keith’s Galra blood, she steals him away from the rest of the paladins and Coran assists her in disposing of him.


	7. S2E8 aftermath -- Nightmare

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Let's slow the pace down a little. There's a lot for everyone to take in and these post-S2E8 reactions are one of the critical changes this alternate reality sees. We'll get into dealing with Allura's reaction and the paladins' (and Coran's) response to it in the next chapter :)

One night, Coran tiptoes down to the paladins’ quarters with some stuff. He’s waiting there patiently when Allura drags Keith back to his room. Nobody suspects anything.

 _Just a talk,_ Allura had said, and Keith was anticipating a lecture on how he’d better not turn on them now that he’d learnt he was part-Galra. It was worse than a talk. The moment they were out of hearing, out of sight, Allura whipped out a rope. Though Keith shouted in alarm, no one could hear him. He shouted the entire way down the halls, but still no-one came after him.

In Keith’s room, Allura keeps a firm hold on the rope she’s used to pin his arms to his sides. She informs him of the sample of his blood she took from the mess he left on the hangar floor. It tested positive as containing traces of Galra. The Blades she can tolerate, but not him. Not him.

“I’m afraid we can’t trust you anymore,” Coran solemnly admits. “We’ve been turned on before, by Zarkon himself. We can’t have you doing the same.”

Keith has no idea what he means, but he’s not a traitor and…Zarkon’s always been bad, hasn’t he?

Before he can defend himself, they hear something outside the doors: voices.

Allura yanks him towards Coran, twists him round and pulls him into a crushing hold. She’s got an arm around his waist and the other wrapped around his injured shoulder, her hand clamped over his mouth. Keith struggles hard, but between Allura and Coran, he can’t even get loose enough to shout a few words.

“Keith,” Lance calls through the door. “You alright, buddy?”

_No! I’m not!_

“Maybe he’s having a nightmare,” Hunk says.

Keith squirms in Allura’s vice-like hold. _I’m not!_

Pidge is outside the door, too. “Keith?”

_Help me! … please!_

Something pricks his arm. He screams into Allura’s hand. Allura tightens her grip. Keith’s head is held firm against her shoulder, so he can’t see what Coran is doing, but he can _feel_ the needle in his forearm. It’s gone in an instant, like someone just pinched his arm, but now he’s shivering like he’s cold and flushed like he’s having a fever all at once.

Two voices disappear. It’s only Pidge at the door now.

“Keith. Keith, wake up.”

Allura doesn’t let him call for help. With the rope binding his arms and his hands behind his back, he can’t pull her hand away, can’t shake her off. He tries dropping to his knees but that doesn’t work either. Allura simply squeezes him even tighter so that he doesn’t slip out of her hold, and the pressure around Keith’s chest is suffocating.

_They’re going to kill me. They’re going to kill me._

“Keith.”

He can’t find his voice any longer. Whatever Coran gave him must be working. Pidge keeps calling out his name but he finds he can’t answer her, even when Allura takes her hand away. It doesn’t occur to him that the doors won’t open. Did Coran set it to lock when Allura brought him in?

_They’re gonna kill me…Pidge…Pidge!_

Allura releases him, spins him around and shoves him back against the wall. His Blade of Marmora knife materialises in her hands a second before she brings the blade stabbing into his shoulder. The nightmare explodes in pain –

Keith jolts awake with a choking gasp.

Pidge is leaning over him, her face grim. She’s telling him to breathe – what, is he not breathing or something? – in and out, in and out, it’s fine, he’s safe, it was just a bad dream. She smooths the hair back from his face, her palm soothingly cool on his forehead.

“Sorry,” she murmurs. “It was the only thing I could think of that would wake you up.”

He swallows. His voice is strained. “…what?”

Pidge blinks. In the semi-darkness, and in his stupor, it’s quite apparent to Keith that she is most definitely not the boy she faked herself as. Then again she’s not wearing her glasses, so it’s a lot easier to make out the feminine features of her face.

“I jabbed your shoulder. Hard. Did you not feel it?”

Wasn’t that Allura, stabbing him with his own knife? But there’s no sign of the Princess – nothing to say she’s even been here. In fact, there’s no one else here besides Pidge, and if it wasn’t for the fact that Keith remembered he was wounded, he might be freaking out for a different reason.

“I don’t know what you saw,” Pidge says slowly, “but no one’s going to kill you. Okay?”

The only thing Keith can do is nod. He hears her, he hears what she’s saying but…the nightmare’s too vivid in his mind for him to actually believe those words just yet. Besides, the fact that he’s a Galra hybrid wasn’t just something the nightmare made up for him.

No. Those thoughts can wait. He can leave getting anxious for later when he’s figured out what’s been going on around him.

For the first time, Keith registers that he’s lying down. A warning bell sounds in the back of his head, but…he’s warm, he’s safe and he’s not alone. The room is for the most part dark, and that on its own is a sharp contrast to the stark white of Laurens’ research lab. Now he realises why there’s a blanket thrown over him and why Pidge has decided to hunker down on the bed next to him with a blanket of her own – it’s not because it’s cold: it’s because she and the others are keenly aware of what anything reminiscent of that environment does to him, and they’re trying to avoid that happening.

He takes great comfort and relief from this being cared for. Though physically he aches all over and his shoulder throbs, Keith almost feels as though it might be possible for him to relax. He realises all of a sudden why this place is so familiar.

“This my room?” Keith asks, puzzled.

Pidge nods. “Yeah.”

“What? Then I…I don’t even remember passing out...”

“It was just after Shiro herded everyone out of the hangar.”

Keith hesitates. “You left me there…?”

“You seriously don’t remember? Me, Hunk and Lance stayed with you,” Pidge says, frowning. “Shiro didn’t want you freaking yourself out with having so many people around, so he took the others up to the bridge and we stayed behind to look after you.”

“Oh…”

The way Pidge puts it makes it sound like he really did lose it. Keith’s memory really _is_ hazy. Hunk was asking after him, then he fell over and someone said something that triggered a panic attack, and then…nothing. Keith realises now that his wound’s been patched up and bandaged, and that they must’ve changed him out of his paladin gear a fair while ago. Yet he remembers none of it.

_I didn’t think it was that much of an injury, but if it made me fall unconscious..._

“Is it bad?”

“Is what bad?” Pidge asks.

Keith glances to the right. “My shoulder.”

With a grimace, Pidge nods. “Cut’s pretty deep. Lost a lot of blood with that one. None of us can believe you managed to stay upright for that long.” She heaves a sigh. “Seriously, man. You’ve got to speak up when you’re not feeling good. Even if it’s just a cold. What if we’re out on the battlefield one day and you’re feeling sick? What if we don’t know about it, huh? What if you faint somewhere and none of us know where to look for you ‘cause _who knows_ , you might’ve run off somewhere to fight someone when in actual fact you’re – ”

“Pidge.” Keith can’t resist a small grin of amusement. “You’re rambling.”

“Yeah, whatever. But I’m not kidding. You gotta talk to us about these things.” Pidge’s expression is severe. She pauses a moment, considering her words. “Hmm, okay. I’m not going to say ‘ _it’s okay if you don’t want to talk about it_ ’ because I know that if I do say that then you won’t, but…Keith, be serious with me. _What happened_?”

Keith scowls. Pidge won’t let up until she has answer. He can’t lie to her, but he can’t think of any way he can adequately explain to her what went down at the Blade base, either. If he’s honest with himself, it’s more so a case of not wanting to, for logical reasons: he can’t defend his reasons for taking the Trials without revealing he’s Galra; he can’t describe what he learnt during the second part of the Trials without revealing he’s Galra; there’s no way he can…

“It was nothing,” he says lightly.

Pidge’s eyes flash. “Don’t you dare say that. ‘ _It was nothing,_ ’” she mimics. “Keith, you’re _not_ fine _,_ alright? You might not remember passing out, but I sure do. Hunk and Lance still do. Everyone else saw you collapse, too.”

“Where are they? Lance and Hunk?”

“Hey.” Pidge huffs. “Don’t change the subject. And they’ve gone up to the bridge to update everyone and find out what the others are talking about.”

_Hopefully not me._

Keith is adamant in his resolve not to tell anyone just yet. It’s too soon. He has a staring contest – or rather, a glaring war – with Pidge over it. Of course, he doesn’t win, and with the defeat his resolve falters. He opens his mouth to say what he needs to say, to get it over with, but the words get caught in his throat.

Two words. _I’m Galra_. That’s all he needs to say. But so much rests on those two words – his fate could very well be determined by them.

“I’m not going to kill you, Keith.”

Keith narrows his eyes, raises an eyebrow - exactly the answer Pidge was waiting for, apparently.

Her eyes grow wide. “You _are_ Galra, aren’t you?” She sits back on her knees, astonished. “Oh dear Lord…that sure throws a spanner in the works.”

Keith’s shocked – at how quickly she reached that conclusion and at the lack of any resentment in her eyes. If anything, she looks like her answer to a math problem she was only 64% sure about was just proved correct.

“Yikes. That, uh…that explains why you…were like you were back in Red’s hangar.”

Alright, so Pidge doesn’t think any less of him. Shiro didn’t seem too bothered. But what about Allura and Coran? What about Hunk and Lance, who Keith has come to think of as friends? What about…what about the fact that Laurens’ hypothesis was correct? He might not be a biosecurity risk to anyone on-board the Castle of Lions, but he could easily be deemed a traitor, a risk to the entire Voltron operation and –

“Keith,” Pidge says firmly. She waits until her voice has grounded him again. “No one’s going to kill you. If anyone has the nerve to so much as hit you, I’ll take them down myself. You have my word on that.”

But that’s exactly what Keith’s scared of – that someone, specifically Allura, will come after him. It’s the one fear he can’t shake off, but he’d rather deny it than say it aloud. He’s afraid of being alone, and this fear ends up overwhelming him so much that it outweighs his self-consciousness.

“Pidge,” he whispers. “Can you…can you…”

But Keith can’t ask it. It’s too selfish a request. Too pitiful of him. Sure, he’s wounded and he’s sick and he’s… _not in the best frame of mind,_ mentally speaking, but he can’t ask more than he deserves. And he doesn’t deserve what he wants, no matter how much he wants it.

Pidge sees through the transparent layer of non-verbalised communication. “You want me to stay with you?”

Keith’s breath catches in his throat. He’s on the verge of crying, he’s that exhausted.

“Since you didn’t say no or shake your head, I’m taking that as a yes.”

Without another word, Pidge flops down on top of him, her head on his chest. She wraps an arm around his other side, hugging him. Uncertain of how to react, Keith lets his left hand hover in the air above her before setting it down on her back. Pidge only hugs him tighter. It doesn’t take long before she’s crying softly into the blanket that’s been laid out over him.

“Listen, Keith,” she whispers thickly. “I don’t want to lose you.”

Stunned. _I don’t want to lose you._ It’s not that she can’t afford to lose him; it’s that she doesn’t _want_ to. Pidge genuinely cares for him and it’s a bit more than he can take in.

If anything, she could easily have been crying out of self-pity. Pidge has already had to give up so much for Voltron, including her entire family who she either lost or left behind. She could easily be upset because Voltron’s her family now and she’s scared of losing someone else. But that’s not it. That’s not it at all, and Keith – much to his disbelief – knows it.

She’s not crying for herself; she’s crying for _him_.

 

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Just a quick currently-platonic-Kidge sketch for that last scene :)


	8. S2E8 aftermath -- Garrison Trio

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So...I ended up doing another sketch while finalising ideas for this chapter. Thought I may as well share it. (I can’t draw Lance well, but hey *shrugs*)
> 
> Alrighty, Chapter 8!! (Insomnia's returned, so I apologise in advance if the writing flow's a little choppy or if there's any homonym typos or whatnot).  
> Thanks everyone for your encouragement, comments and kudos!! <3

Keith’s drifted off to sleep again within minutes; Pidge stays awake.

She presses her cheek to his chest, listening to his heartbeat. His every breath lifts her very slightly, now steadier than before and much more even. She holds him in a loose hug, quietly matching her own breaths to his and hiding her face in his warmth.

It’s behind them now, what happened under the radar back at the Garrison. But Pidge has come to learn as much as Keith and Shiro have that it doesn’t matter how hard she tries to let go of the past – the raw emotions that scarred her when she watched those videos won’t let go of her. To add to that, she’s also learnt that first impressions _do_ last; she still hasn’t been able to forget the first time she actually met Keith, when Lance had carried his limp body across the tarmac to rendezvous with them at the hovercraft. Now she’s reliving those emotions all over again.

Seeing Keith like this stabs her in the gut. This vulnerability is such a stark contrast to his usual uptight defensiveness. It catches Pidge off guard, even though she’s seen him like this before. Perhaps that’s why she’s so anxious: the last time she and Hunk and Lance had taken care of him, he’d been rescued seconds away from death. She wasn’t sure how she felt at the time when Lance had told them what a close call it had been. That quickly changed, however, when she saw it for herself on surveillance footage.

Pidge curls her fingers into the blanket covering him. She’s crying again and she’s not ashamed of it, though she tries to keep her sniffs quiet so she doesn’t wake Keith.

_“They’re gonna kill me…Pidge…Pidge!”_

Her voice had reached him. Keith had heard her but he’d been trapped inside that terrible nightmare, unable to wake up. She’d tried pinching him, and which point he cried out, but nothing she did would break him out of that stronghold. If poking a finger into his shoulder wound hadn’t worked…

Watching Keith struggle against his own mind had been like watching the videos of his torture all over again. Since the music wasn’t getting through to him, Lance had removed the headphones from his ears and which point Pidge had started calling his name. He hadn’t woken up. If anything, the nightmare had gotten worse. It was as though his traumatised mind was incorporating their voices into his dream, warping his perception where they were actually calling him from.

_“They’re going to kill me. They’re going to kill me.”_

Pidge can’t get those words out of her head. It’s worse because she knows who he’s so afraid of: Allura. That was the dead giveaway in the end, besides his sceptical response to her reassuring him she wasn’t going to kill him.

She’d joked to Lance and Hunk about Keith having nothing to fear in regards to Allura unless he turns out to be Galra, but the more she’d thought about it the more it all made sense: Keith’s behaviour, not letting anyone get close; his desperation to keep silent, to stay in the background and not draw any attention to himself; the terror in his eyes when Allura spoke to him and his obvious relief when she left. It was like that terror itself was screaming that Laurens was right.

Watching those videos had been hard enough. Pidge can’t image how hard it must be on Keith.

She raises her head, peering beneath her fringe at her friend’s sleeping face. _How do you do it, Keith? You’ve been through such hell and yet somehow you still manage to find a way to keep on living. You’re so_ strong _and yet you don’t even seem to realise it._

But the fact that Laurens wasn’t wrong in her hypothesis has Pidge unnerved. It’s taken a great deal of courage and suffering for Keith to be able to come to terms with his PTSD and what happened to him, and an even greater effort from everyone else to help him understand that his trauma is a hundred percent valid and he’s a hundred percent still worthy of being loved. Even if at times he struggles to remember who he is.

Pidge takes a deep breath. She shifts a little so that she’s still hugging him, just lying beside him with her head on his uninjured shoulder now. It’s a lot more comfy, and it’ll be a bit easier for Keith to breath without Pidge crushing him.

Hunk and Lance are taking their time reporting back. Maybe they’ve gone back to the med bay to pick up Keith’s paladin gear and give the bloodied flight suit a wash. Maybe they’re trying to quell an argument between Allura and Shiro on the bridge. Pidge hopes that Shiro’s doing alright, having to be the Galra-Altean go-between, Voltron team leader, Takashi Shirogane and Keith’s concerned older brother all at once.

 _Poor guy’s going to be had it,_ Pidge thinks. _And to think he deals with his own post-traumatic stress on top of all these responsibilities of his…_

Just like that, Pidge’s mind is drifting. She’s not so tired that she expects to fall asleep, but she decides to settle herself in for a nap all the same. After nestling in beside Keith with her own blanket pulled up over her shoulders, she closes her eyes.

A mistake.

Her imagination runs wild. Her mind reels. Before long, she’s picturing a number of scenarios she really wished she hadn’t started thinking about.

_Keith has a knife. A sharp knife that’s his and also the only other evidence of his Galra blood beside himself. With that knife in his hands, all it would take is for Keith to reach a serious low point and –_

_Argh, Pidge! You’re freaking yourself out. Stop overthinking things!_

They’re going to have to keep a close eye on him. In fact, it’s probably not even Keith they need to watch closely – it’s Allura. Yes, it’s actually Allura who’s the number one threat to his life right now. She’s the one Keith nightmare about and she’s the one who’s going to have the biggest issue with Keith being part Galra.

At some point, Pidge stops thinking. She’s asleep for a good two hours before Keith wakes her up.

 

It’s humiliating. Keith comes to, dazed and still a little disorientated. He’s trying to remember when he fell asleep when he realises that Lance and Hunk are standing inside the doorway, grinning.

They know there’s nothing going on between them, but the two of them decide to hassle him about Pidge sleeping next to him anyways. Keith’s too tired to launch himself into an argument, especially since he literally just woke up, so he figures the best thing he can is wake Pidge up too. Fortunately Lance doesn’t have enough time to get a picture taken before Keith successfully rouses her.

Pidge is wide awake in an instant. Keith grunts at this because he, on the other hand, is far too drained to even _want_ to be awake right now. When Pidge sits up, he knows that’s his cue to get up as well. He doesn’t want to move at all, his body aches so badly. But he hates the fact that he’s being stared at, and his embarrassment is all the motivation he needs.

Everything _hurts_. His shoulder feels like a ten kilogram weight’s been dropped on it, and the wound stings so badly he wants to itch it. Keith can’t even sit up on his own. Pidge and Hunk end up giving him a helping hand, pulling Keith’s body into a stiff ninety-degree angle. The blood drains from his face but it doesn’t come with the sickening dizziness that swept over him in the hangar earlier.

“Thanks guys,” he murmurs, “for helping me out back there.”

Lance’s gaze softens. “It was nothing, Keith.”

_Of course it wasn’t nothing. Apparently I lost my mind down there, according to Pidge. I bet I went as ballistic as Red._

The true feeling of that thought is shame, or rather guilt, but he feels the Red Lion’s sense of pleasure that they share this similarity between the two of them. It’s just as she said, Keith’s her paladin alright.

“So, Keith,” Hunk begins nervously. “How’re you…how are you doing?”

No more needs to be said. The question on Keith’s mind has been answered.

“Shiro told everyone, didn’t he?” he mutters.

Lance crosses his arms over his chest with a pointed glare at Hunk. “Yyyyeaah…he kinda did. Eh, _Hunk._ ”

“Not my fault Keith read my mind.” Hunk raises an eyebrow, then turns his attention to the totem bag full of bits and pieces that he’s carrying. He holds the bag out in front of him. “Hey, so we’re thinking we should probably take another look at your shoulder, Keith. But, uh, I think I’m gonna pass on all the blood and what not this time around, so I’m just gonna head back out and see if the wash cycle’s finished.”

Lance takes the totem bag from Hunk. After the Yellow paladin’s disappeared out the door, he sighs.

“Alright, Pidge,” he says. “Let’s do this.”

Keith tenses. There’s two of them, in full health, against one of him, injured. If they come at him, he’s screwed and… _no, it’s fine. It’s fine. Pidge is here, which makes two against one. And Lance is very sensitive to what happened to me, so it’s highly unlikely he’ll do anything of the sort that Laurens did…_

Both Lance and Pidge are watching him carefully, waiting for Keith’s approval before they do anything. This action in itself is enough to reassure him that’s he’s safe in their hands.

Keith nods. “I’m fine. I trust you guys,” he murmurs.

It’s the truth – he does trust them. That doesn’t stop his heart from speeding up, though. It doesn’t distract him from noticing how neither Lance nor Hunk mentioned anyone’s reactions, and it doesn’t keep Keith from thinking back to his nightmare from earlier. He doesn’t have the guts to ask about Allura just yet, though, so he shoves that question to the side for later.

After turning aside the blanket, Keith slowly shifts himself to the edge of the bed. He lets his legs drop to the floor and sidles over so that he’s not sitting there awkwardly. While Pidge shuffles over to kneel on the bed beside him, Lance starts unpacking the fresh dressings, ointments and painkillers.

Pidge gets to work unwinding the bandage around his shoulder and chest. Her touch is light and purposeful, but gentle. Keith doesn’t flinch at all. When the bandaging’s off, she instructs him to hold the gauze pad in place while she prepares a new one. It’s not pleasant when she peels the old one away. The exposure to the air _burns_ and the movement has disrupted some of the clotting. Keith can taste the metallic smell of the wound, but thankfully it’s not infected. He has Pidge, Lance and Hunk to thank for that.

Keith’s shoulder is cleaned and a new gauze pad pressed over the wound by the time Hunk returns. The Yellow paladin casts an apprehensive glance in Keith’s direction before seeing that the dressing’s already been changed. Hunk sets down Keith’s washed and folded flight suit down by the door and comes over to stand by Lance, all the while intentionally avoiding looking at the bloodied dressing half-wrapped up on the floor.

“Hope you don’t mind,” Hunk says. “We put your suit through the wash. Got a bit messy with that shoulder of yours.”

Keith winces as Pidge starts rubbing anti-inflammatory ointment into the bruises littering his upper body. He mumbles his thanks, trying to keep his mind off the pain. Lance and Hunk try to distract him by updating him on the plans being made up on the bridge so far. It’s inconclusive mostly – _no, don’t think about that –_ but some progress is being made – _‘more research needed’…no, don’t think about Laurens! –_ and Shiro reckons they’ll have something – _they’re going to kill him_ – by the end of the day.

They seem excited about these plans on taking down Zarkon, but Keith is hearing a different version: _how to take out Keith._ In his mind, he sees Allura whispering to Coran on the bridge while Shiro’s distracted and discussing intel with Kolivan and Antok. Plans are being made, yes, but there’s more than one plan being arranged here. As soon as Allura and Coran – even just the Princess – can get Keith alone, then…

The elephant in the room makes itself known. Keith’s hands are shaking. He might be able to hide it in his right hand, but his left hand’s the one holding the new gauze in place and it’s in plain sight of everyone. Lance and Hunk are a little slow to notice, but Pidge isn’t. She’s the one who brings the question to the surface.

“How’s Allura?”

Keith catches her watching him out of the corner of her eye. _I’m on your side,_ she seems to be saying. _All of us in the room here are._

When Lance doesn’t answer that, Hunk does. “Uhh, she didn’t take it all too well. But don’t beat yourself up about it, Keith,” he adds quickly. “It’s not you, it’s her.”

Pidge applies some more ointment to the bruises on Keith’s spine. Her massaging is the only comforting thing in this silence. Keith knows he’s stiffened up because Pidge makes a point of pausing, her fingers resting at the top of the aching bruise in the middle of his back.

“You guys realise that nightmare he was having was about her killing him?”

Keith swallows. _How does Pidge know that?_ _I didn’t tell her that much…_

Lance and Hunk stand awkwardly in front of him, shocked and probably a little disturbed.

“Pidge,” he mutters. “You didn’t have to tell them.”

“Ah, but I did,” she says, screwing the lid back on the ointment. She grabs a fresh roll of bandage from the totem bag pile and begins unwinding it. “I think we deserve to know why you start avoiding us the moment you’re backing on your feet. Knowing you, you’re going to do that out of instinct, aren’t you? Hiding from everyone?”

Keith ducks his head, guilty. That’s exactly what he had intended to do, the first chance he got: run and hide.

Pidge doesn’t seem to blame him though. If anything, he can feel her empathy for him. She’s no less careful in her winding the bandage around his chest, no less kind when she asks him to move his hand now so that she can wrap the bandage of the gauze pad on his shoulder. Her movements become more gentle, more sure. With a satisfied tap, she tucks the end of the bandaging in on his chest, where he can reach it if he feels too restricted by it and needs to loosen it at any time.

“Keith,” Pidge says, lingering in front of him. Her eyes are locked on his. “No one’s gonna let her hurt you, okay?”

He wants to look away, but finds he can’t. Whereas usually people’s eyes are the most dangerous place to look, Pidge’s gaze is the safest to be held in. After a moment, he takes a deep breath and gives her a small nod. Answering without words, Keith meets her gaze and holds it, hoping he’s able to convey what he needs to out of the turmoil of emotions reviving inside of him.

Lance and Hunk watch this exchange silently. Neither of them say a word when Pidge drops down into a crouch and wraps her arms around Keith’s middle. Much to Keith’s relief, they don’t joke around either.

A shard of ice lodged in his stomach begins to melt. He can trust these people. They’re his friends – they’ve shown him that time and time again. Keith can trust them when they say they have his back and he can’t tell them how much that means to him.

_Oh, no. Don’t cry. Don’t cry._

Keith brings his arms around Pidge and hides his face in her shoulder. A moment later Lance and Hunk are carefully joining in the group hug, too, and in the solid warmth surrounding him, shielding him, _protecting him_ , the chilling nightmare loses its grip on him.


	9. S2E9-11 -- Allura Watches the Videos

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Just a bit of a warning: PTSD is tough. Suicidal thoughts, though they may never turn into action, are sometimes part of the aftermath. Pidge touched on this in the last chapter, in her deep fears of what Keith might be driven to do; in this chapter we see Keith’s train of thought leading him to this exact place. I’m aware that some people may be sensitive to reading this kind of thing (it’s not graphic), so if that’s you or you’re a little uncertain of whether or not you want to expose yourself to it, just skim over the first scene of the chapter and start reading from the second scene (‘Up on the bridge,….’).
> 
> Chapter 9: S2E9, Belly of the Weblum; S2E11, Stayin' Alive :)

Keith sits where he is on the edge of his bed a while after the other three leave, suppressing his anxiety. His anxiousness is valid, he knows, but sooner or later he’s going to be needed on the bridge. It’d be better if he faced the others on his own accord as opposed to them coming to talk to him, too.

_I might as well just get this over with._

Red stirs at his resolve to fight on. Keith’s chest warms and he offers her a reluctant smile.

_Yeah, I know, Red. There’s no way I’m giving up this fight that easily._

His paladin armour’s waiting on the floor beside his flight suit. Hunk or Lance must’ve brought it in while he was sleeping, or rather, while he was nightmaring. It seems unlikely they would’ve come in and left quietly had they brought in the armour when Pidge was with him. Keith braces his left hand on his knee and stumbles to his feet, swaying a little, before walking over to get his flight suit.

Keith knows he should rest a bit longer before donning his paladin gear again, but sitting around will only give himself time to _think_ and he doesn’t like where his head’s at right now – his eyes are constantly flicking to his Galra blade sitting on the bed a few steps away, his imagination always doubling back to the thought of how _easy_ it would be to take that knife and let it taste all the Galra blood in him it seeks. Pidge, Lance and Hunk said they’d give him some time to himself, to have a bit of a chance to come to grips with this new revelation. That means that no one’s due to come by in a decent while – plenty of time to stick his knife in his gut and die before anyone can make it in time to stick him in a pod; plenty of time to let his _‘contaminated blood’,_ as Allura had called it in his dream, bleed out onto the floor. Allura would probably like that. She’d be relieved, knowing that the potential for a traitor has been eliminated. Then she’d put on a show and fake how _terribly sorry_ she is that the Castle pods can’t bring him back to life, and –

_Paladin._

Keith blinks. Red startles him with a booming growl, causing him to lose his grip on the last piece of armour. It drops to the floor with a loud clatter, but Red’s growl has the greater volume.

_Fight it, Keith._

He hates himself for letting his thoughts get so dark so quickly. The other paladins – his teammates, his _friends_ – aren’t going to let Allura bully him. They’ve said as much and Keith knows that, Pidge especially, isn’t one to say something and not go through with it. If things get out of hand, Keith can trust them to speak up on his behalf. Red, too.

Closing his eyes, Keith takes a deep breath and exhales slowly. _I can do this. I can do this._

Red’s growl shifts into her reverberating purr. _Red paladin._

Up on the bridge, Keith treads as softly as he can on his sore feet, keeping his head down and his eyes lowered. Kolivan, Antok, Allura and Shiro are all standing directly opposite the entrance, on the other side of the display. Though Keith would prefer to stand in the general vicinity of Pidge, Hunk (who’s snoring) and Lance, doing so would put him in Allura’s line of sight, so he makes his way over to stand beside Coran instead.

Shiro acknowledges Keith’s presence briefly amid a deep discussion on fine strategy details with Kolivan. Keith answers with a small nod, to which Coran offers him a sympathising smile.

“You feeling a bit better now, young Keith?” Coran asks quietly. “Don’t need half an hour in a pod or anything?”

Keith shakes his head. “No, I’m fine. Thanks.”

“Alright then.”

Allura, who’s standing on the other side of Coran, refuses to acknowledge his presence. She hasn’t so much as looked in his direction once. Keith’s heart sinks, his thoughts flicking briefly to the Blade of Marmora knife he’s hidden in his paladin armour.

_No. It’s fine. Allura just needs time to accept that I’m Galra. She’ll come around…I think._

To take his mind off things, Keith decides to focus on rather than ignore the painful ache growing in his right shoulder. It hurts. Not the torn and weeping kind of hurt, but the sort of pain that comes after applying pressure to a sensitive injury. Maybe he should’ve listened to the voice in the back of his head cautioning him against putting on the chest plate so soon. His left hand unconsciously moves to his shoulder. After slipping a finger between his shoulder and the armour, though, the pressure lifts to ease the throbbing slightly.

The careful planning of a way to potentially take down Zarkon is coming to a close. Keith’s relieved when the various missions are set up and he doesn’t have to stand around _thinking_ any longer. Shiro, who Keith still hasn’t had a chance to catch up with since they stepped out of Red, sends him off with a bro hug and a relieved smile that he’s doing okay. Keith wants to be honest and tell Shiro otherwise, but he can’t with so many others nearby, particularly the Princess.

_Later, then._

Allura keeps up her cold regard of him even as he and Hunk walk up the ramp into Yellow. Keith’s stomach churns. He can only hope that she’s not as hostile towards him when – _if –_ he returns from this Weblum-scaultrite mission, otherwise this wedge of racism that’s been lodged in between them is going to start having serious consequences on the structure of their Voltron team bonding.

 

There comes a moment when Shiro decides he’s had enough. Allura’s attitude is seriously getting on his nerves, even more than Slav.

Everyone’s back on the bridge of the Castle after the missions and fighting off that robeast they fought on the Balmera for the second time. Keith seems to be doing okay. His movements aren’t as stiff as they’d been before his departure with Hunk to seek out the Weblum, which is a positive sign. His eyes are wary but clear, and he doesn’t seem nervous about being around anyone else anymore. That is, with the lingering exception of Allura.

“A-Allura,” Keith stammers. Shiro can hear his voice pitch. “Have you heard from Coran?”

The Princess doesn’t turn around. “Yes,” she replies curtly.

The effect on Keith in immediate – the effect on _everyone_ is.

“So,” Lance says quickly, “we ready to pop through a wormhole and get back to Olkarion?”

“Yes!” Allura beams, spinning around to face them. “I’ve checked in with Coran and the Teludav is nearly complete.” Her expression softens. “Hunk. Thank you for getting the scaultrite.”

The last of Shiro’s patience to wait out the tide of Allura’s unacceptance of Keith has officially runs out. He’s about to say something when Hunk beats him to it.

“No problem.” Hunk grins. Then his face falls. “You know,” he says flatly, “Keith was there, too.”

All the Princess does is glare at Keith. Much to his credit, Keith keeps his gaze firmly locked on answering hers. It angers Shiro how Allura could be so obnoxious when it’s written as clear as day on Keith’s face how much her attitude is damaging him.

Through their paladin bond, Shiro knows the extent to which everyone’s now fed up with Allura’s arrogance. Keith’s three hundred percent done, too, except he’s too busy battling post-traumatic stress to take it in stride.

 _That’s it,_ Shiro thinks. _This can’t go on any longer._

The moment they touch down on Olkarion, he starts doing something about it.

 

Pidge waits until Shiro confirms he’s with Keith before she opens the Mugilidae files for conversion.

She’s angry. She _can’t wait_ to see Allura’s pathetic-ness, if that’s even a word, get wiped off her face. The Princess is acting like a child and Pidge can _feel_ how it’s actively eroding what little sense of self-worth Keith has. Pidge won’t lie to herself in admitting that she’s thrilled to have Shiro’s consent to deal Allura with some much required horror.

“Hey Lance,” Hunk says behind the Green paladin’s seat. “You gonna be okay, man?”

Lance has been pacing back and forth between Pidge’s chair and Keith’s for the last five minutes. His arms are crossed over his chest and his frown’s the deepest Pidge has ever seen it. He pauses mid-step to flash an unconvincing smile at her and Hunk.

“I don’t like that we have to resort to this.” Lance sighs. “It shouldn’t _have_ to come like this – Allura’s a Princess, for crying out loud, and Keith’s been a part of the team all the time we’ve known her. To think she has the nerve to…”

Hunk walks over to Lance and lays a hand on his shoulder, bringing his pacing to a halt. “None of us like this. But we all agreed before that if watching these videos a second or third time is what it takes to get Allura to realise what she’s doing, then it’s a measure we need to take.”

Lance grimaces. “Yeah, I know. It’s just… I’ve had some bad dreams about this stuff: I rock up to Laurens lab and Laurens has already emptied that syringe; I see Iverson with that bag of Keith’s clothes and I don’t do anything about; I run into a senior officer on my way to rescue Keith and I don’t get there in time because…”

Pidge isn’t the only one with tears in her eyes now. Conversion of the video file format to the Castle’s accepted formatting is 47% complete. Hunk wraps his arms around Lance, who easily disappears in Hunk’s embrace. Pidge sniffs. The numbers on her laptop screen get jumbled.

Three files. Once the conversion is completed, Pidge drags to her control panel the videos of the oxygen deprivation test, some footage from the many days’ worth of alkaline resilience testing and  and the last one on the list, the scene before Keith’s rescue. She has these prepared on the main display when Allura walks in behind Coran.

The Princess sees the scheming looks on the paladin’s faces and scowls. “Coran. This isn’t about Slav’s minor alterations on the Teludav, is it?”

Coran doesn’t flinch at Allura’s accusation. “No, Princess. It is not, but I ask that you’d humour the paladins for a moment.” In an effort to convince her to stay, Coran explains, “Lance once mentioned that some…terrible things happened to one of the paladins before they left their planet. I didn’t really understand how bad this ‘terrible’ actually as was until Shiro talked to me about it not a varga ago. The paladins…they wish to show us what this person went through. If we don’t – ”

“Is it Keith?”

“ – take the time to learn about the troubles each one of us is facing, we risk damaging the bonds we’ve worked so hard to build up as a team.”

“Princess,” Lance says thickly. “Just watch.”

Hunk gives the thumbs up and Pidge presses play.

She averts her eyes so she’s not looking straight at the screen. The audio of Keith’s desperate gasps for air cleaves Pidge’s heart in two. She notices Lance set his jaw and Hunk close his eyes against the awful scene that’s on display. Pidge isn’t even the one who went in there to get Keith out, but she wishes to erase this horrid memory from her mind all the same. In the wake of Keith’s nightmare, reviewing this stuff is gut-wrenching.

Half-way through the video of a tied down Keith writhe in pain on the bed while the doctor in the room just stands there watching, Pidge flicks a glance at the two Alteans. Coran’s mortified, Allura profoundly disturbed. A sad kind of satisfication – achievement, rather – washes over her.

 _Good,_ Pidge muses grimly. _Smart thinking, Shiro._

They play the footage of Keith’s close call with death, narrated by Lance. He explains what Laurens was doing to help the Alteans understand what the consequences would have been if Laurens had stuck that syringe into the needle in Keith’s arm. No Red paladin, for one. No Voltron, for starters. On screen, they watch Lance cut him free and carry his limp body out of the lab.

“They were trying to prove that Keith was some part alien,” Lance murmurs. “Now, out here in space, that’s not necessarily a far-fetched idea, but back on Earth it’s absolutely _absurd._ Everything they did to him was unacceptable, so you’ve got to realise how traumatised Keith has been since it all started.”

“As in, Shiro-PTSD-traumatised,” Hunk clarifies.

Lance nods. “Yeah. Keith’s had a mighty hard time coping with the aftermath of that – I mean, they _tortured_ him. So now we’re out here in space and he’s just starting to come out of his shell when he learns that, actually, _Laurens wasn’t wrong._ Not only is he part-alien like those crazy scientists suspected he was, he’s part-invasive-alien-species kind of alien which just so happens to be the race of baddies we’re fighting out here in this war.”

Pidge, who was there when Keith’s nightmare escalated, dares to her own two cents worth in.

“After he fainted in Red’s hangar,” she says, “Keith had a scary nightmare. He wouldn’t tell me the details, but he kept talking in his sleep and saying things like ‘they’re going to kill to me’. Before he lost consciousness, he was begging us not to let you take him away, Allura. That’s how freaked out he’s been since he found out he’s Galra, so I’m not going to say this nicely – if you keep up this _unnecessary_ attitude of yours, we’re going to wake up one morning to find that Keith’s killed himself during the night.”

Perhaps that came out harsher than it needed to. Pidge doesn’t regret it. She’s seen how much Keith’s wariness of Allura has plagued him these last two days. She’s seen what it did to him and she’s not having any more of it.

Allura humbles herself enough not to defend herself. She looks between Coran and the paladins, her face sober, and nods solemly. “I…I’m…I’ve made an awful mistake. I realise that now. It’s not too late to apologise to Keith for how obnoxious I’ve been, is it?”

Lance offers her a small smile. “No,” he says softly. “It’s not. I’m sure he’ll greatly appreciate that.”

“And Allura, don’t worry.” Hunk regards the Princess kindly. “He’ll forgive you. Not going to lie and say the rest of us aren’t a little angry about how you’ve been, but yeah, we’re not going to hold it against you either, okay?”

Allura passes a hand over eyes, nodding. Coran holds out his arms but the Princess quietly declines.

“It’s alright, Coran,” she says, her voice wavering. “I just…I can’t believe how…how _foolish_ I’ve been.”

Pidge grunts. “At least you realise it now.”

Hunk shoots her a _‘careful’_ glare as a notification bleeps on Pidge’s screen. Shrugging at Hunk, she taps it open. It’s from Shiro.

“Hey guys,” she says. “Shiro’s just sent a message in to say that he and Keith are heading out to observation platform. I think we should join them – Keith’s going to start asking questions if we don’t.”

The paladins all look at Coran and Allura. Coran gives them the thumbs up and Allura, wiping a finger beneath an eye, nods. Pidge gladly closes the open files and shuts down her laptop, then she follows Hunk and Lance off the bridge, leaving the two Alteans to process what they’ve just seen of Keith’s trauma.

 _Don’t worry, Keith,_ Pidge thinks as the three of them approach Shiro and Keith on the observation platform. _Allura’s not going to be treating you nasty anymore._

No one speaks of this to Keith. He doesn’t need to know that Pidge kept the files, not unless that knowledge is accompanied by the due apology from Allura. As for what they’ve made the Princess aware of, that’s for Allura to bring up and not for the paladins to meddle with any more than they already have done.

She feels bad for having lumped this on Allura all of a sudden, but when Pidge had looked Keith in the eye and promised him she wasn’t going to let anyone hurt him, she’d meant it. When she’d told him she didn’t want to lose him, she’d meant that too.

For Keith’s sake, she doesn’t regret it at all.


	10. S2E11-12 -- Apologies

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry for the delayed update! :) There were a number of angles I could've written this chapter from and my sleep-deprived brain kinda hit a wall yesterday (laughs)...argh, the fun times of being an insomniac. Anyways, here it is!
> 
> Chapter 10: S2E11, Stayin' Alive; S2E12, Best Laid Plans

Pidge swings her legs over the edge of the observation platform.

“What’s everyone thinking about?” she asks everyone.

Keith doesn’t answer. He’s in the process of drawing conclusions.

There’s a reason why Shiro wanted him away from Castle. There’s a reason why Pidge stayed behind on the bridge with Hunk and Lance instead of rushing down to see Rhyner and talk Olkari science. There’s a reason why the three of them have come surrounded in a perfectly tangible aura of old horror.

_They’ve been talking to Allura._

Since its Zarkon and… _calzones_ which is on everyone’s mind, the conclusion Keith arrives at is that somehow they were able to get their point across to Allura.

He’s at a loss as to how they managed it, since the Princess’s attitude towards him had been a conscious choice of hers and she’s not one to change her mind very easily. Then again, neither is he. At least, over the time he’s spent as a part of this Voltron team, he’s learnt to be a little more patient and self-controlled in his reactions and responses to things.

“We’ve come a long way,” Keith murmurs aloud.

The others launch into reminiscing then. Keith doesn’t join in, since the majority of his recent memories aren’t exactly fond ones. Lance makes fun of his overreaction to Klyzap. Keith bristles, but once his initial irritation dies down he gets that Lance is just trying to include him in the conversation.

That’s when he notices how silent Shiro’s become.

“You realise once we defeat Zarkon,” Shiro says, turning around, “the universe won’t need Voltron anymore.”

Keith knows that what he’s really meaning is, _they won’t need us._ Everyone hears it.

“We can return to Earth,” Lance says.

Pidge’s smile fades to seriousness. “I can look for my family.”

It dawns on Keith then, too. “I guess I could look for mine.”

The thought of having family out here in space that he’s never know about until now is still strange. Having the chance to look for them, though…he’s not quite sure how he feels about that.

 _Who cares if they accept me or not – I’d have to_ find _them first. I mean, it’s space; it’s not like I’m going to just run into my long lost mother all of a sudden._

“This is it,” Shiro says. “As long as everything goes according to plan, we can’t fail.”

Murphy’s Law. Of course it doesn’t go according to plan.

 

Shiro decides to go forward with their plans based on the assumption that Thace will report in soon.

While the two leaders are waiting for the Blade’s due communication, Keith watches Allura. She hasn’t acknowledged him – not really a surprise, considering the last few days – and Lance has been sticking within a close range, too. Hunk and Lance aren’t doing anything new, nor is Shiro. More importantly, though, Allura doesn’t seem to have changed much, either.

_Maybe I was wrong._

Keith’s still convinced that Shiro got him away from the group so that they could have a word with Allura in private, but now he’s not so convinced that their conversation was of any effect. It’s a little disheartening, knowing that he’s just going to have to accept Allura’s scepticism of him as the new normal. At least they tried – that alone is enough for him, regardless of what his relationship with the Princess is going to be like from here on out.

Admittedly, that’s one of the reasons why he jumps up to take over Thace’s part of the plan.

It’s dangerous, sure, but it’s highly important, and Keith’s not willing to let the whole plan to take down Zarkon fail because no one was up for taking on this high-risk mission. Better to try and not succeed than fail before they’ve even begun. Besides, if he does get caught out, then it means he’s one less issue the others – well, namely Allura – needs to worry about…

_Fight it._

Keith’s heart skips a beat. He’s doing it again. Tainting his thoughts again. He sends a flash of gratitude to Red for the reminder.

He’ll prove himself. He’ll prove the trustworthiness of the Blades, too. Even if Ulaz’s sacrifice meant nothing to her, if Keith ends up sacrificing himself for the sake of Voltron’s war, then maybe Allura will consider her preconceptions of there being no good Galra around. It used to worry him, the intensity of Allura’s hate, but now that he’s on the receiving side of the fence it actually angers him.

_I don’t want be angry at her. I hate how bitter it makes me feel when I…well, hate someone._

But Keith knows that even if he’s still around after this mission to hear Allura’s apology, it’s going to take some time before he can look at her without remembering how much she’s hurt him. He wants to forgive her, but right now he’s finding that incredibly hard to do. When he gets there, though, it still won’t allow him to forget how she’s treated him…and how much her manner has mirrored Laurens’. He’s still going to be wary of her; the nightmare lingers in the back of his mind.

 

Pidge has just finished installing the cloaking device into the pod when Allura walks in.

Keith’s instantly on guard, mind racing. He keeps his gaze steady, but when the Princess asks to have a word with him, the unspoken word being ‘alone’, his shaking hands give him away. Pidge is short enough to catch this sign of fear in her peripheral.

“Sure thing,” she says. “Have all the moments you like – but I’m staying.”

Allura’s cheek twitches but she accepts the terms and conditions nonetheless. Pidge doesn’t relinquish her warning glare as the Princess approaches, even when she glances up to check on Keith.

_Just letting you know, I meant what I said; I sure as hell ain’t gonna let her harm you._

Keith’s voice is tight. “Is there something I can help you with?”

His eyes are fixed on Allura’s every move. Pidge watches them both carefully, ready to intervene. She keeps her left hand casually hanging down by her side, her fingers _casually_ brushing against her leg armour ready to summon her bayard in the blink of an eye.

“I...” Allura hesitates, averts her eyes.

There’s a double meaning to her expression. Either Allura’s deeply troubled or not impressed that she has to make this apology. Keith probably doesn’t know what to expect. Pidge still sits on the fence.

“I just wanted to say…the Galra – they’ve done _terrible_ things.” Allura glances up at Keith, again with a potential double meaning. “Destroyed entire civilisations. They took my family.”

Apologies don’t start off accusatory. Pidge’s fingers itch. Keith’s standing rigid, one level away from deciding whether he’s going to enter fight or flight mode. The pod’s all ready to go. She could buy him some time to literally go into flight mode if that’s the escape he needs.

“But in time,” the Princess says, “I’ve grown to consider _you_ and the paladins my family.”

Pidge bites back a sharp comment. _Family? You consider Keith_ family, _huh? Do you want to take this outside?_

“So when I learned you were Galra, I…I didn’t know what to think. I wanted to hate you…” Allura cuts off Keith’s objection. “But it’s not you. It’s me. My anger has blinded me for too long.”

That’s when Allura rushes at Keith. Pidge reacts instantly, bayard in hand. But it’s just a hug. Keith’s stunned, but not alarmed. She lets her bayard disappear again, but only drops her high alert level when the apology is an audible strain in Allura’s voice.

Pidge is relieved, albeit grimly. The measures it took to get to this point weren’t exactly favourable, but they worked. Of course, though, it’s these measures which has Keith curious.

“What exactly did you say to her?” he asks quietly once the doors have closed behind Allura.

Keith’s wary. She doesn’t blame him. This has been a great success in the end, so this would usually be the time Pidge starts grinning and boasts of her achievement. But it’s far too serious, far too sensitive an issue to even think about smiling about.

Pidge narrows her eyes. “I hadn’t got around to deleting the files from the Garrison. Hunk, Lance and I made her watch a couple.”

_Give or take one…_

She trusts Keith. She trusts that he trusts her. Pidge can tell by the nature of his silence that how badly this affects him will depend on how much he trusts her. A cloud of emotions pass across his face, but betrayal isn’t one of them.

Keith grimaces. “Thanks,” he whispers.

Pidge shrugs. She’s about to apologise for not consulting him first when he turns away from her, a hand covering his eyes. She’s seen him do this before. Twice.

“Hey…a-are you _crying_?”

There’s a sound that escapes him, something between a small laugh and a sob. "Yeah _._ "

While Pidge is deciding whether she should give him space so as to not to embarrass him or go and hug him, she’s hit by something. Green. Green’s empathy, with a hint of Red’s white-hot promise to protect her paladin. All of a sudden she’s overwhelmed by insight.

_Keith can’t explain his feelings adequately enough for Allura to understand without making her out as the bad guy. His fear is that she’ll think he’s just trying to defend himself. He’s scared of invalidation, of being rejected for it. He’d rather suffer silently than risk that happening. So when Keith learns that Pidge showed Allura, and probably also Coran, the videos, he isn’t angry – if anything, he’s relieved and overwhelmed with gratitude._

_They cared. They cared enough to recognise his hurt and do something about. They spoke up for him and didn’t just go at it half-heartedly. That kind of thing is so rare in his life, it’s almost culture-shock._

_It’s occurred to Keith on multiple occasions how it must’ve had a serious impact on Lance, Hunk and Pidge to do what they did. They dared to look into it when they noticed something strange about his disappearance. They went to the effort of digging and digging until they found more leads that would lead them to him. The whole team were willing to watch those videos, every single one of them, so that they might be able to better empathise with him._

_They’ve looked out for him this whole entire time, even when he didn’t think they were. They stood up for him when Allura crossed the line. They gave Allura validating evidence of his trauma where he couldn’t do so in words. Keith’s aware that Coran is no way near as insensitive to his PTSD as Allura, but it relieves Keith him to know that he doesn’t have to constantly feel the need to explain his extra-temperamental behaviour anymore._

_He’s sickened to think that his trauma was_ taped, _that Laurens videoed all of it, but he’d already figured it out that he was being recorded. Keith’s also keenly aware that, without that evidence, his rescue never would’ve come in time.  He greatly appreciates that Pidge, Lance and Hunk would be willing to view such disturbing content a second time round, for his sake. Not only that, they thought about the impacts it would have on him. Even if they hadn’t asked him about it, they made sure that he didn’t accidently walk in onto the bridge to see it._

Keith’s reaction circles back round trust.

_He knows that they had the files – it just hadn’t really crossed his mind that Pidge would’ve kept them. But he trusts the paladins. He trusts them with his life, as he should. He knows that they’re not the kind of people who are sick enough to watch those videos for pleasure._

_Keith connects the final dots. Back on the observation platform, he’d seen the subtle negative impacts that watching those videos has had on them. They’d become a lot more subdued, less talkative, overshadowed by the knowledge that they’d witnessed something horrible and dark that they really shouldn’t have had to. He recognises why they did it. He’s seen how Lance is so in tune with his PTSD, how Pidge is adamant in showing her empathy, how Hunk cares for him enough that he would risk losing his lunch to convince Allura that she’s in the wrong._

_To Keith, this means heaps. More than he can say, and to be frank, more than he can process._

Pidge is overwhelmed. No wonder he’s had such a hard time adjusting to his PTSD: beneath that defensive, seemingly hot-headed nature of his, Keith’s super compassionate and unbelievably soft. She’s awed by how _strong_ he is. Laurens put him through such awful stuff and though she repeatedly broke him, he still pulled through. Maybe he was at his limits, maybe he was at the end of himself and had nothing left in him but Blue’s presence, but he still made it through it all.

Pidge can’t hold herself back any longer. She doesn’t want to. She walks into Keith and hugs him tight. He doesn’t complain.

 “You’d better come back to us,” Pidge says when she eventually pulls away. “Else I’m coming out there to get you.”

Keith smiles. He nods, wiping a finger beneath his eyes. “I will.”

Pidge grins. She’s crying herself now. He’s family; she doesn’t care if she’s crying in front of him.

“I’ll see you out there,” she says. “Now go get ‘em.”


	11. S2E13 -- Drained

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> One...more....exam(for now) !!!!! So, uh, all this studying's got me feeling as drained as the paladins after the komar, meaning I'll be taking a bit longer to wrap my head around ideas for the next chapters. I'll be updating every two days from now on (one day for ideation/planning, one day for detailing/writing) for the remaining few chapters. I expect we'll have this fic finished by the time Season 6 comes out next Friday, so don't worry about having divided attention - let's just go all-out crazy about Season 6 before we hit the fics again!!
> 
> Thanks everyone again for reading, commenting and leaving kudos!! :D  
> Also, I'm kinda new to the whole rolling down hills business of tumbling, but if anyone's interested in writing/novel writing tips, discussions on PTSD/depression and, well, Voltron (of course), that's where I'll be posting that kinda thing [once I figure out how to blog :P]. I'm an introvert who doesn't really know how to blog, so if anyone's got any tips on how to tumble well, that'd be greatly appreciated!] Here's the link: https://callaeidae3.tumblr.com/ 
> 
> Chapter 11: S2E13, Blackout. (Bye bye real-Takashi-Shirogane. See ya later on sometime...)

_“No, Thace._ You’re _too late.”_

_“…and a fellow blade, I see.”_

_“You’re turning the room into a bomb?!”_

_“It’s the only way.”_

_.._

_…_

_Run. Get out of here fast. Noise following. Explosion. Heat. Space. Red._

_.._

_…_

_Voltron. Need to take out the bridge. Excruciating pain…!_

_Black. .._

_…too drained…to move._

_Muscles underwater, on fire…weighing like lead. Feeling like a rope’s been tied around his whole body, far too tight and restricting his blood flow. The pressure is gone now, but his body remembers it._

_Breathe. I can still breathe._

_…Red?_

Keith forces his eyes open. He’s slumped forward over Red’s dashboard. His arms hang down on either side of him.

“-iro, can you hear me?”

_Who’s voice is that? Allura’s?_

“Yes, Princess. We’re alive.”

_Shiro._

“Is Voltron operational?”

Keith feels terrible. He feels worse than he did waking up from the anaesthetic Laurens had him put under back at the Garrison.

“It’s not working,” Hunk says through the comms.

It takes mental determination to get his brain to tell the nerves in his hands to move, to take a hold of the gear sticks. Even when he does so, Keith’s too drained of energy to sit himself upright. He gives the gears sticks a feeble yank. They’re stuck.

He grunts. “I can’t move my lion.”

“You’ve been hit with some kind of witchcraft that draws the quintessence out of you,” Coran explains. “You need to get out of there! Another blast like that and you may not survive.”

For some reason Keith thinks of his trauma. He couldn’t survive another round of that, let alone this. No wonder he’d been so afraid of Allura these past few days.

“Wait,” Lance whispers. “What’s that?”

Keith blearily looks out the windscreen. His vision’s a little hazy, but he’s feeling a bit stronger now. Strong enough to lift himself out of the slouch to try see where and at what Lance is looking.

_…oh no._

It’s Zarkon. Emerging from his ship in some massive Zarkon-shaped armour with wings like that of the Black Lion.

 _We’re screwed. We are_ seriously _screwed._

“You must get moving,” Allura says urgently. “Remember your training. Remember all the battles you’ve been through.”

Shiro’s losing his calm. “Voltron is still not responding.”

 _Can’t run. Need to run. The nurse has his ankles tied. Need to move. She grabs his wrist. Cold hands._ Keith’s heart pounds. _‘Voltron is still not responding.’ The nurse ties his other wrist to the railing. No escape. Too late. Too late. She finishes tying the final knot. We’re screwed. Zarkon. Need to run. We’re screwed!_

Shiro groans. “It’s Zarkon.”

“Listen to me!” Allura says through the comms. “You are true paladins now. Connect with your Lions. Reach out to each other. Fight! This cannot end now!”

Those words should be moving. But Voltron still can’t move, and Zarkon –

Keith’s filled with a terror he can’t control any longer.

A blast of blue energy. The Castle intercepts Zarkon’s beeline for Voltron. Zarkon puts up a shield, is carried by the blast until he crashes backwards into his ship. Allura keeps the beam of energy pummelling him and the Castle of Lions gets closer and closer.

Then Zarkon uses his shield to deflect the beam straight back at the Castle.

Allura screams. The Castle is propelled away from the ship, offline.

“Allura!” Shiro yells.

There’s no response. The Castle’s dead quiet.

Keith stares over his shoulder in shock. If Voltron could’ve moved, if they’d seen that witch’s attack coming…! They could’ve done something. They could’ve done something!

“Everybody,” Shiro says, his voice low. “Listen. We have to fight. We have to channel all our energy, visualise five becoming one, we have to focus _everything we have_ into moving Voltron.”

Adrenaline. Keith closes his eyes, takes a deep breath.

“We are the last thing standing in the way of Zarkon’s total universal domination. I’m not giving up that fight! Are you, Hunk?”

Yellow’s courage. “No.”

“Pidge?”

Green’s unyielding determination. “Never.”

“Lance?”

Blue’s readiness. “Let’s go down swinging.”

“…Keith?”

Red’s refusal to give up, her itching to fight on. Keith’s heart stirs.

“I’m all in,” he murmurs, grinning.

Zarkon’s mech suit brings out a sword. The ‘V’ on Black’s chest lights up.

“Then let’s get Voltron back in this battle!” Shiro growls.

Voltron brings Red and Green together. Keith and Pidge. Energy ripples between them as Voltron draws its own sword.

Zarkon comes at them.

 

A sword fight. Streaks of blue and purple.

Hunk’s bayard forms Voltron’s shoulder cannon. Zarkon’s wings form a shield to block the attack.

A bolt of dark energy snakes out towards them. They see it coming this time and dodge it. Zarkon’s mech gives them a solid kick.

No matter how they come at Zarkon, their attacks have no effect. Voltron’s sword doesn’t outmatch Zarkon’s and their blasts are always countered by his shield.

“We’ve never faced anything this powerful before!” Pidge yells.

“One way or another,” Shiro growls, “this may be our last battle. We’ve got to give everything we have. Dig deep and fight!”

Keith remembers. That time – no, one of the many times – he reached the end of himself. When the trauma became too much. When he was so emotionally broken it scarred him. When he had nothing left to fight with but Blue kept telling him to live. He’d been doubtful. Even now, there doesn’t seem to be any hope of winning this battle.

_But that’s where I was wrong. I didn’t have all the information. I didn’t know that, at the other end of the Garrison complex, Lance had noticed something was up, Pidge was breaking codes and hacking into files and Hunk was ditching his being a goody-two-shoes for the sake of rescuing me. I thought I was a goner. I hadn’t expected to wake up again when that anaesthetic knocked me. But here I am today. Right now. Still alive, still surviving, still fighting._

_Shiro’s right: this may be our last battle. However, at the same time it might not be. There might be other forces already in motion to save us, to help us win this fight._

All of a sudden they’re locked in combat and a strain on Black is pulling at the bonds which hold them together as Voltron.

Shiro grunts. “He’s trying to control my Lion. I c-can feel him in my mind.”

“Fight it, Shiro!” Keith growls.

_Hear that, Red? I’m starting to sound just like you._

Voltron draw back its sword arm – Red – and throws it forward, plunging the blade into Zarkon’s mech. Zarkon shoves Voltron away, uses the Black Bayard to electrocute them all. The comms are filled with screaming.

Then it stops. Voltron’s not Voltron anymore; they’ve been split apart into their five individual Lions.

Keith recovers quickly, brings his Lion around. “Shiro,” he yells. “Shiro?!”

But there’s no answer, no sound coming through from the Black Lion. The Black Lion itself is unresponsive.

“Something’s wrong with Shiro,” he says to the rest of the group. Keith lets the fight boil in his blood. “Guys, we can’t let Zarkon get the Black Lion.”

They don’t stand a chance. Four Lions? Against Zarkon?

_There is no other option._

Of course, they’re attacks are useless. Their defence is amateur against Zarkon’s handle on the Black bayard. But the distraction is working. As long as they can keep this up long enough for Shiro to come back online, they still stand a chance.

Black speeds through Zarkon, bladed wings cutting through space.

Keith blinks. Did…did he really just see that right? Black went _through_ Zarkon’s mech?

“What did you do?” Lance breathes.

Shiro sounds astonished. “I’ve got Zarkon’s bayard.”

Keith grunts. “You mean you’ve got _your_ bayard.”

Shiro goes quiet a moment, considering that. Then he recollects.

“We’ve only got a few minutes left before power returns to Zarkon’s ship,” he says. “Form Voltron!”

 

..

 

When Voltron disassembles, it’s not on their own accord.

Keith’s not sure if he blacked out or not. There was a blinding flash of light, then everything went dark, including Red and…

“Did we do it?” Lance murmurs.

Yellow comes back online and Hunk calls out, “Is it over?”

Before they can do too much an assessment on Zarkon’s damaged mech crackling with electricity, the Castle appears nearby and Coran’s voice comes through the comms.

“I have Allura and Kolivan,” he says. “We need to go.”

Keith’s thoughts tick over. Allura and Kolivan? What about Antok? If Kolivan went anywhere to fight, Antok would’ve surely gone with him. Had something happened to him, like Thace?   

They’re heading back to the Castle when Keith notices something else: Black’s not moving. Thank goodness he wasn’t preoccupied with his concern for Antok’s safety.

“Shiro!”

Pidge, who’s flying by Red’s left flank, notices too. “We need to tow him back onto the ship!”

Once they’ve all back onboard the Castle, Pidge notifies Allura. A wormhole opens up and they get themselves far away from the debri and the damage of the battle…space. Ten seconds later and they’re safely in the middle of nowhere.

 

The moment they’re out of the wormhole, Keith jumps out of Red and starts sprinting for Black’s hangar. He hears the others pass through the hangar doors behind him, but he doesn’t slow down. Black still hasn’t moved, and all Keith can think about is that something’s happened to Shiro.

He yells out his brother’s name, keeps sprinting.

Lance, Pidge, Coran, Hunk and Allura are standing behind him when the doors to Black’s cockpit hiss open. Keith’s glad they’re here, because what he sees through those open doors is unsettling.

“Shiro?”

The control sticks have no hands on them. Shiro’s bayard sticks out of the console as though forgotten. The pilot’s seat is empty. Keith’s heart sinks. Allura’s standing right next him but he’s only vaguely concerned. More alarming is the unexplainable, somewhat disturbing absence of Shiro.

“He’s gone,” Lance whispers.

Normally, Keith would’ve uttered a retort under his breath. He’s too much in shock for that. Instead, he just stares at the empty seat before him, unblinking.

The blood drains from his face. He can’t _think_.

Hunk, Coran and Allura leave. He doesn’t notice.

Lance says something to him. He doesn’t hear him.

Pidge tugs on his arm. Keith doesn’t budge. She tugs harder. He snatches his arm away from her.

Keith’s rooted to the spot. A part of him goes into flight-or-fight mode at the thought of a mysterious absence. He can’t make sense of this though. It wasn’t like when _he_ disappeared – no one was watching then and no one cared. This is different. Everyone was there. Everyone was fighting with Shiro right up until Zarkon exploded. They were there. _Shiro_ was there. This kind of thing can’t be happening.

_It doesn’t make sense!_

 

Keith doesn’t emerge from his state of shell-shock for an hour. Pidge stays with him the whole time.


	12. S3E1 -- Keith, Pidge and Coffee

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Exam…done. Yay! And a week until Season 6!! :D Double yay!! I'm pretty sure my daylong desire to sleep came through in the writing tonight, but hey...didn't want to rush straight from 'action/oh no, Shiro's gone' to 'emotionally chaotic adapting to leadership', so here's a bit more reaction to follow on from last chapter before we head into the leadership stuff in the next one.
> 
> Chapter 12: S3E1-ish, Changing of the Guard

It’s late, but Pidge isn’t tired enough to sleep yet. Neither is Hunk. They’re down in Green’s hangar mucking around with some programming ideas for around the place, including how to hook up their new Mercury Gameflux 2 in the Castle. All it takes is a glance at Hunk staring blankly at his screen to tell they’re getting nowhere.

Pidge sighs. “I’m gonna go for a walk.”

She swipes her coffee cup from off the desk and holds out her other hand.

“Hunk?”

“Hmm, sorry. What?” Hunk blinks twice at her extended arm, confused. Then he sees Pidge’s cup in her other hand and his eyes flash. “Ah, right,” he says, passing her his. “Thanks.”

“You wanna come? Kitchen and back?”

With a quick glance at the tabs he’s got open on the screen, he hums in thought. “Ahhh, you go ahead. Just want to double check something. I’ll catch up.”

Pidge shrugs and swivels on her heels. “See you up there, then.”

The hope had been to clear her head a little. Her brain’s hurting from thinking too much and she can feel the strain beneath her eyes from lack of sleep really starting to let her know how tired she is.

_First there was that Blade of Marmora incident when Keith got injured, the aftermath of that and having to put up with Allura, then we had to figure out how to defeat Zarkon and we nearly got destroyed in the process. Now Shiro’s gone, out of the blue…out of the Black…_

_No, Pidge,_ she rebukes herself. _That’s not even funny. No puns. Not now._

It’s been two whole days and there’s still no sign of Shiro. Keith’s been out twice in Red already, the first time finding nothing and the second time out of paranoia that he may have simply missed something. It’s concerning. Not just for Shiro’s sake, but also for Keith’s.

She’d been itching to get back to the bridge, back when they’d all crowded around Shiro’s empty chair. Pidge has never been a fan of thick-atmosphere, unexplained-circumstances situations – probably a result of the lies her and her Mum were told when her Dad and Matt went missing. She’d felt rather than seen, however, how Keith had gone into complete shock at Shiro’s perplexing disappearance and that had been enough to snap her out of her wanting to get away.

Her heart aches for Keith, it really does. She was there during the worst of the nightmares. She’s witness the rare public event of him crying, twice. She was there, too, when Keith was so hollowed out by shock he couldn’t speak or move.

 _It’s like no one really notices how much he’s hurting,_ she thinks. _I mean, we all know how close he and Shiro are. They might as well be blood brothers. We all can see it upsets him that Shiro’s gone, but I don’t think any of us, even me, understands how badly this has him shaken up._

Pidge concentrates on her link with Green, asking for another round of insight. There’s no response. From the slight stirring in her chest, she knows that Green heard her. She’s just choosing not to intervene this time. Pidge can’t hide her disappointment, but she realises it’s probably better this way. There’s only so much she can do; she can help from time to time, but at the end of the day the fight is Keith’s and Keith’s alone.

_It might be his fight, but he doesn’t have to walk it out alone._

Ten minutes of walking-pondering later, she’s at the kitchen. The light’s on. It doesn’t even occur to her that this is strange, not until she walks into the room, lets her eyes adjust and then finds there’s no one even in there.

Pidge blinks. _Odd._ Her attention is grabbed by something to her left. The jar of Balmeran coffee is empty on the far bench, the lid unscrewed and sitting upside down beside it. She’s astonished to see it’s _empty._ There’s only one person who actually drinks that stuff. Pidge screws her face up in disgust. She takes a few more steps into the kitchen and freezes when her eye catches red.

Keith is lying motionless on the floor. The two coffee cups slam down on the benchtop.

“ _Shoot!_ ” Pidge is kneeling at his side in an instant. “Hey! Keith, what’s wrong?”

He doesn’t look to be in pain. In fact, the way he’s lying, curled up with an arm folded back beneath his head and with his back to the cupboards he’s pressed himself into the corner of…it almost looks like it was his choice that he’s like this. It takes several seconds of tapping his cheek before she gets any response. When she does, it’s an annoyed groan.

Keith stirs, lazily batting her hand away from his face. “What d’you want?”

Pidge feels suddenly stupid for freaking out like she did just now. She smirks at herself.

“You’re kidding, right?” she says. “You were asleep, weren’t you?”

Keith squints at her in the kitchen light. Pidge shuffles over so her shadow falls across his face. He stares at her just as blearily as before. He looks so exhausted he doesn’t even have the energy to be self-conscious of her leaning over him.

Pidge shakes her head. “Dude,” she says, incredulous. “What are you doing, sleeping here?”

“What…?”

“You scared me, man! I thought…no, never mind. You’re fine. That’s all that matters.”

The flash of pain in Keith’s eyes hurts. Of course, he’s not fine at all. He’s not dead or injured but his emotions and his PTSD have been tearing him apart for the last week and now Shiro’s gone. Pidge inwardly curses herself. Of course he’s not fine.

Keith covers his mouth as he yawns. “Are we under attack or somethin’?”

“You seem so enthused,” Pidge says dryly.

He grunts. “Yeah. I’m just so in the mood for a fight. Maybe I should go hit the training deck.”

“You’re not serious?”

Keith smirks at Pidge’s expression. “Duh.”

Pidge’s brain struggles to think if that answer makes any sense grammatically. As she’s side-tracked, the small smile slips from Keith’s face and his eyes start to close again. She frowns at him.

“Hey,” she says. “Just go to bed.”

The smile returns. “Nah. It’s fine…here. Comfy…”

“Nope. No, it’s not. I know because I’ve slept on the floor in Green’s hangar multiple times and it’s never fun waking up with an aching back or hips or ribs in the morning. Up you get!”

As she says this, she slides a hand underneath Keith’s side, simultaneously wrapping her other arm around his torso. He jerks at the touch, a hand nearly hitting her in the face as she pulls his upper body off the floor. Keith’s face goes red, but there’s a shyness about him as he lets her take his weight. It’s like he’s been in such desperate need of a hug that he doesn’t have the heart to let his embarrassment get in the way of it.

Pidge grimaces. This is great, but she hasn’t yet figured out how to actually get him up. Judging by the way he’s basically flopped in her arms, chin resting on her shoulder and arms limp beside him, Keith’s far too tired to stand up on his own. Give it another five minutes and he’ll probably have fallen asleep again.

 _How on earth can you drink coffee and be like this?_ She wonders. It’s not the first time she’s seen him nodding off after having some. _Coffee’s meant to keep you awake, not make you crash._

She’s beginning to think that maybe it’d be a better idea just to let Keith sleep here after all. Maybe she could fetch him some blankets and a pillow or something and he should be sweet. The idea seems tangible, and she’s contemplating doing that when she hears footsteps come in from the hallway.

“Whoa!”

Pidge cranes her head over the black of Keith’s hair to see Hunk’s staring at the two of them, particularly Keith who’s slack in her arms.

“Whoa, Pidge. Is he alright?”

She chuckles. There’s no tension in Keith’s shoulders at all now. He’s asleep again.

“Caffeine hit took its toll, I think,” she says. “Wanna give me a hand?”

Hunk continues staring until Pidge raises her eyebrow at him. He dismisses the confused look on his face and comes around behind Keith, arms reaching out. Pidge replaces her hands beneath Keith’s arms and passes him up to Hunk.

As though realising there’s nothing underneath him to support his weight anymore, Keith jolts awake again. Hunk steadies him as he finds his footing, coming alongside him with a hand around his arm. Keith jerks away from him, only to stumble sideways into Pidge. His legs give way and Pidge groans as she’s holding up all his weight in her arms this time.

“Hunk!”

It’s weird. Keith’s on high alert all of a sudden. He flinches at the call for help and then, when Hunk draws near, he goes all skittish, struggling to get his bare feet to take his weight but failing. His eyes are wide, his breaths quick and shallow.

Hunk’s most definitely not a threat. Keith should know that. _He’s, like, the most gentle, kind-hearted soul I know,_ Pidge thinks. _Why would Keith be scared of him?_

The bewilderment causes a nervous tension in the kitchen. Hunk’s withdrawn, but he looks hurt. He exchanges a worried glance with her. Keith presses as close to her as he can like he’s still trying to put distance between himself and Hunk but is too weak to drag himself away on his own two feet. Like Pidge is a refuge and Hunk is seconds away from morphing into his worst nightmare.

Pidge’s heart drops into her stomach. _Oh._ Green stirs affirmation in her chest.

That first video. Not the first video she watched – the first video that confirmed Lance’s suspicions back at the Garrison. Keith had followed Laurens into the Biosecurity department and never come out. _It makes sense, it makes sense!_ If it had just been Laurens, there’s no doubt Keith would’ve easily come running back out the second he realised how off things were. _He was ambushed. They totally set him up!_ Which means there was more than one person waiting for him. He’d been physically held down until they’d subdued him enough that he wouldn’t keep trying to fight them.

Now she realises why Keith’s clinging to her.

“Come on,” she murmurs. There’s a pinch to her voice that she tries to keep hidden. “You’re tired. Let’s get you back to your room.”

Keith exhales shakily. The fright in his eyes dims a little, so Pidge takes that as an okay to proceed.

“Hunk,” she says firmly. “You stay here. I’ll come back right after this guy’s settled.”

Keith tenses. Pidge realises her mistake.

“It’s okay,” she says quickly. “I’m not going to hurt you. I’m not going to hurt you.”

The walk from the kitchen five hundred metres down the hallways is…difficult. Exhausting, actually. Keith’s arm is slung over Pidge’s shoulder and he’s leaning heavily against her. Keith, the guy who’s almost always on the training deck in his spare time, so worn out he can barely walk. Pidge’s muscles ache as she fights to compensate for her smaller size. She tightens her grip around his waist, pulls him a little closer to her. If he falls down, she’ll either have to drag him the rest of the way, hope that he lets Hunk take him from here or…trade letting him sleep on the kitchen floor to letting him sleep in the middle of the Castle’s main thoroughfare.

_Somehow I don’t think that’d go down too well in the morning. Guess that’s not an option._

“Thanks, Pidge,” Keith mumbles.

She glances up at him, brow creased. “For what?”

Keith keeps his gaze fixed on the hallway floor in front of him. He doesn’t answer a while, just focuses on making sure his feet obey, that his legs keep shuffling forward. Pidge is relieved that everyone else is asleep. She can’t bear to think how humiliating this would be for him if Lance or Allura found them walking around like this.

“For being a friend.”

Pidge replays those words over and over in her head, making sure she didn’t mishear them. Keith said them so quietly, she could’ve easily…

She flashes him a sad smile, giving his forearm over her shoulder a gentle squeeze. “Hey, it’s nothing.”

Keith glances at her then. The loneliness she sees there is enough to tell Pidge otherwise. _‘Nothing’._ What is she saying? Of course it’s not _nothing_ to Keith – it’s completely the opposite.

Pidge doesn’t say anything more on their little hike, but it gets her thinking – about how similar the two of them actually are: they’d both do anything for the family they have, even if the only family Keith has is Shiro; for both of them, their family were their only friends before Voltron happened; he was a loner and she was a nerd everybody rejected. So when she lost Matt… _oh no…_ when Keith lost Shiro – just two days ago – her…his fundamental means of support crumbled right in front of him.

It hits her hard as they finally arrive outside the Red paladin’s door, Pidge’s muscles burning: the moment the reality of what those Kerberos news headlines meant hit her…Keith went through that, too. It wasn’t just her family on that mission – it was Keith’s _only_ family. Now Shiro’s gone, again. No explanation, again. Disappeared without a trace almost like he himself had when Laurens took him for research.

Keith doesn’t notice her thinking, thankfully. She doesn’t have the heart to explain what’s on her mind. As soon as his knees touch the side of his bed, Keith’s body decides that’s enough and he tips forward, awkwardly landing on his side and taking Pidge with him.

_Did he just…fall asleep standing up?_

She can’t help but envy his ability to ‘lights-out’ that easily. Her racing mind keeps her awake for hours. Then again, this is probably an exception for Keith now that he’s got PTSD to deal with both when he’s awake and when he’s not.

Pidge sighs. They’re both half on, half off the bed. Keith’s more on than off due to his height. Watching his face carefully, she slides out from under his arm, landing on the floor on her knees. Next time they visit the Balmera, she resolves to ask one of the Balmerans what kind of plant their ‘coffee’ comes from. It’s definitely not like the kind of coffee Earth knows.

It takes a lot of awkward manoeuvring to haul Keith up the rest of the way on the bed. She hovers between stooping over him and clambering onto the bed and pulling him up. He doesn’t stir all the while she’s doing this and Pidge marvels at it. She realises that he wouldn’t have let himself drop his guard like this in front of her if he didn’t trust her a hundred percent. Ninety-eight percent and, knowing him, he’d force himself to stay awake just in case. Pidge is humbled.

Keith’s lying on the single sheet, so Pidge grabs one of the blankets he’s still got in his room from when he was sick and lies that over him. That’s all she can do for now. She stands where she is, making sure Keith doesn’t drift into nightmare territory while she’s here and can do something about it. He doesn’t. Pidge sighs, watches him a minute longer and leaves.

Hunk’s waiting outside the door. He raises his eyebrows, giving the thumbs up. Pidge smiles, returning the thumbs up. The two of them walk quietly back to Green’s hangar, careful not to disturb anyone on their way past.

Pidge lets her mind return to her previous train of thought. They’re both back to square one, her and Keith. Her father and Matt are still out there at who knows where and Shiro is…Keith’s brother is gone, to who knows where…

Which begs the question: with Shiro gone, who will pilot the Black Lion?


	13. S3E1-2 -- Red to Black

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So, uh, I didn’t exactly expect to write a whole chapter on Keith’s transition to leadership, but here it is! :) 
> 
> Chapter 13: S3E1, Changing of the Guard; S3E2, Red Paladin.

“Tell them to stand up and fight for themselves!” Keith snaps. “Voltron is gone!”

He whips around and marches out of the dining hall, his shoulders hunched. The back of his neck pricks and he knows everyone’s watching them. He knows he shouldn’t have yelled like that at their guests. He knows he should've ‘behaved more like a paladin’ but he’s sick and tired of people harking on about how much they want to see Voltron, or about how they need to find a new pilot for Black. Not once has anyone mentioned Shiro’s name in all of this and it bothers Keith more than he can take. He’s not hanging around in this room any longer.

 _Black’s got to know something._ This thought haunts him the entire way back to his own room. _Shiro’s her paladin. She wouldn’t let anything bad happen to him, would she? Did Black teleport him to safety somewhere or something?_

Red doesn’t help him out. In fact, she’s been eerily quiet since their last battle. Aside from softly confirming that she still hasn’t found any trace of Shiro out in space, she’s barely made any contact at all. He tries not to think about it too much. The connection is still there; she hasn’t given up on him yet. But something Shiro once said makes him worry.

_‘Keith. If something happens to me, I want you to lead Voltron.’_

_No. I won’t accept it._

Technically speaking, Black’s already accepted him. Sure, that was only once and it was for the sole purpose of saving Shiro from those creatures, but that doesn’t negate the fact that the Black Lion allowed Keith to pilot her.

 _No! I’m not…I can’t lead. I’m reckless. I do stupid things, I’ll admit it. There’s no way the team would even_ consider _letting me lead them._

Trepidation. It’s the reason why Keith went hard on the Balmeran coffee last night. It’s also the reason why Pidge found him crashed on the kitchen floor. He’s scared that Black will choose him. He’s terrified of what the team will think of him.

Why not Allura? She’s practically been co-leading Voltron this whole time. Or Lance? Keith’s seen how he is around Kolivan. He might be a jerk, but he’s a seriously genuine guy with a lot of heart and great potential hiding inside of him.

But Keith… he’s never led anyone in his life. The only thing he’s ever done – to mirror his own words – is stand up and fight for himself.

_I can’t do this. Please don’t let me do this._

Keith changes out of his armour and dresses back in his casual clothes. He puts on his belt, knife secured at his back, and heads down to Black’s hangar in a dare to prove to himself that his trepidation is misplaced.

Due to everyone else still being involved in the meeting he abandoned, Keith isn’t hassled for his attitude or anything in the hallways. He makes it down to Black’s hangar without resistance and without being witnessed. No doubt they’ll look for him later and guess this is where he’s come though, if not Red’s hangar, the training deck or his room. But he doesn’t want to be found just yet, so he approaches the collapsed Black Lion and walks stiffly up the ramp into her cockpit.

It’s dark inside. The atmosphere is completely different to Red’s. More contemplative and less there-in-the-moment. When he sits in Shiro’s seat, automatically Keith feels the air of leadership settle around him, but it feels far too great for him, far too _Takashi Shirogane_ to be passed on to him. Not wearing his paladin gear only helps to make him feel too less of a paladin for this job.

Keith sighs. “I know you wanted this for me, Shiro…”

It takes a moment to swallow his apprehension before he’s able to reach out and take a hold of the control sticks. When he does, a weight seems to fall on his shoulders. Keith closes his eyes, half attempting to connect with Black again and half building up as many walls between him and the Lion as he can.

“But I’m not you,” he murmurs. “I can’t lead them like you.”

The void Shiro’s absence has left in his heart makes itself present again. Keith’s on the verge of allowing himself the due tears when it happens: the strength of his bond with Red fades into the background to be replaced by a soul-calming rush of air deep inside his being.

The darkness is no longer dark. His face is lit in vibrant, glowing purple.

Keith opens his eyes in dawning fear. “Please, no…”

Black’s windscreen is alight with panels. Her hydraulics hiss, and with an alto roar she gets to her feet. The second roar is much louder than the first. It echoes throughout the hangar and vibrates throughout the Castleship walls.

 

Up in the dining hall, the meeting’s finished and Lance tells everyone it’s probably just Red making sure Keith doesn’t do anything stupid.

 

 

“Keith,” Coran says. “You piloted the Black Lion when you had to save Shiro. Perhaps _you’re_ the one.”

Unable to confidently lie, Keith looks away and doesn’t answer.

The necessary conversation of who-will-pilot-the-Black-Lion has come up again. Everyone’s changed back into their casual wear – which is great, because otherwise he’d feel too wary of the fact that they could summon their bayards at any given point and use them against him. Regardless, Keith stands well away from the circle everyone’s gathered in in the paladin’s lounge, in the hope that it would allow him to avoid taking part in this conversation.

Obviously, it’s too late for opting out of it now. All he can do is say nothing and pretend Black didn’t just accept him as her new paladin.

Lance protests at Coran’s suggestion. “Keith would be the _worst_ leader of Voltron.”

_He’s only joking. He’s only joking, just trying to light up the mood._

“Yeah,” Pidge says. “We all have our thing. Keith’s the loner, I’m the brain, Hunk’s the nice one, Allura’s the decision-maker, Coran’s the wise old guy and Lance is the goofball.”

_See, I’m a loner - thank you, Pidge! Now go tell that to Black._

Lance distracts him in his stupid attempt to get a better description. “Wait a minute! I’m not a goofball – I’m like the cool, ninja, sharp-shooter.”

Keith grunts, unable to suppress a grin. “Are you joking?”

“I’m being completely serious when I say I do not want _you_ to lead me anywhere.”

That stings. That _really_ stings. Keith’s ability to keep himself together shatters. He’s not grinning anymore.

“I don’t wanna be the leader!” he shouts hoarsely. “That’s just what Shiro wanted!”

Keith’s eyes widen. He’s said too much. _I’ve said too much._ Everyone’s looking at him now, curious. He turns his head to the side, gaze averted. If he sees the disgust in Lance’s eyes, or the disapproval in Allura’s…

“What are you talking about?” Hunk asks.

“Nothing,” Keith mumbles.

Pidge’s voice is soft, careful. “Shiro wanted you to be his successor, didn’t he?”

If it were just the two of them, no doubt Keith would be in tears in seconds. But he can’t afford to let his guard down _that_ much, not with Allura in the room. He might trust Pidge, but Hunk and Coran would follow Allura’s orders if she decided to get rid of him after all, and Lance isn’t exactly on his side right now.

Keith’s heart sinks. This is some terrible mistake; the Black Lion’s paladin is meant to be someone whose team will follow without hesitation and these guys sure aren’t going to follow _him._ Once Allura finds out how he’s abused the Lion’s choice of paladin characteristics ‘for his own selfish gain’, she’s going to want him off the Castle ASAP – or maybe even dead.

“Well,” Lance says. “I never heard Shiro say that, and how convenient that you’re bringing it up now when Shiro is gone.”

Pidge issues a warning murmur. Hunk glares hard at Lance, hoping he’ll get the message.

Keith’s overcome by anger and anxiety. He unfolds his arms and stands tensed with his fists ready at his side. “You want the job so badly? You can have it!”

Hunk rises. “Now, now, hang on… _I_ called the head from the very beginning.”

“What about me?” Pidge jumps up too. “I’m the one who picked up on the radio waves that led us to Voltron in the first place.”

Keith slams himself back against wall, hands over his ears. His eyes are stretched wide, his chest is tight, he can’t breathe, he can’t breathe…. _I can’t breathe! Stop – please stop!_

“Hold your gazurgas, everyone!” Coran exclaims. He’s up beside Keith in seconds, bracing him against the panic attack with a hand resting between his shoulder blades. “It’s not our decision to make. We must allow the Lion to decide.”

Keith’s mind has gone blank. He stands as he is, albeit it shaking a little, as Coran rubs his hand up and down his upper back. Keith blinks, breathing fast and sharply, trying… _trying_ to calm himself down.

“Coran is right.”

_…Allura?_

Keith dares risk a glance at her. He blinks again, slower this time. Allura’s not angry – she’s concerned in an apologetic way.

“We must all present ourselves to the Black Lion,” the Princess says, “to see who will bear this glorious burden.”

All of Keith’s instincts want to scream in frustration, _‘It’s me! Like I’ve been trying to tell you, it’s me!’_ He doesn’t. He keeps quiet while Allura explains to the rest of them how she, too, desires to present herself to the Black Lion. Keith wants to warn her not to get her hopes up, but he doesn’t. She’ll find out – along with everyone else – it’s not going to be her. Keith almost wishes it was, though.

 

They all head down to Black’s hangar. Keith trails behind them, already knowing what they’re going to find when they get there. It’s impossible to hide the truth any longer but he doesn’t have the courage to tell them before they see it for themselves.

The weird thing is that, of all people, it’s Allura who approaches him first.

“Keith, are you alright?”

He flicks her a surprised glance before resuming his cover-up scowl. “Yeah. Fine.”

Allura watches him a moment longer, her brow creased, before turning away from him to give him space.

Keith takes a deep breath. He keeps his head down, keeps his arms crossed defensively over his chest. It’s only a couple more minutes’ walk until they reach the hangar. His anxiousness builds with every step until cold sweat has the armpits of his black shirt damp.

Everyone’s speechless. The Black Lion’s sitting up. Her eyes gleam when she sees Keith, but the others don’t see this. Allura and Coran are stunned, Lance, Hunk and Pidge flabbergasted.

Lance is the first to break the silence. “What the cheese…?”

“Does this mean that Shiro has returned to us?” Allura asks nervously.

The Princess glances at Coran, at Keith, at the Garrison trio…and then her eyes fall on Keith again, his expression clearly not as astonished as the others.

“Keith?”

Her eyes narrow, but not in an unkind way. Keith doesn’t know how to respond to that, nor does he know how on earth to explain this to the rest of them. He opens his mouth to try, anyways, but no words come out. He looks away – and happens to lock eyes with Black.

“No way,” Lance says slowly. “You’re kidding, right? This isn’t what I think it is?”

After the way Lance acted towards him up in the paladin’s lounge, Keith doesn’t have the heart to look at him. He’d openly resented the idea of Keith leading, so anything the guy says from here on out can only be the prelude to rejection.

“I’m proud of you, Keith,” Allura says quietly. “I wish you were getting the job under better circumstances, but congratulations.”

The smile is audible in Pidge’s voice. “Congratulations, Keith.”

“Yeah, man,” Hunk says. “Ditto.”

Keith turns to face them now, tense. “No. I don’t accept this.”

As he’d expected, everyone’s taken aback.

“You must,” Allura says. “The Black Lion has chosen you.”

“I can’t replace Shiro! You guys were right. I’m the loner.” Keith breaks eye contact then, ashamed. “I’m not the leader Shiro thought I was.”

A hand slaps down on his right shoulder.

“Keith,” Lance says firmly. “No one can replace Shiro. But the Black Lion wouldn’t chose anybody it didn’t feel was worthy to lead Voltron. I respect it’s choice. You should too.”

Pidge comes forward to stand beside Lance. “Is that why you drank so much coffee last night? Because you were afraid of this happening?”

Keith nods curtly. He’s ashamed enough as it is without Pidge bringing up the fact that she practically had to carry him back to his room last night. She doesn’t mention that detail, though, and for a heartbeat Keith wonders if his continuous ‘show’ of vulnerability is, in fact, _bothersome_ to her, like he’s taking advantage of her kindness or something. No – that’s just his fear of rejection talking.

But that’s exactly it – he’s afraid. Keith’s terrified that, as soon as they find out how terrible a leader he’s going to be, everyone’s going to reject him. Including Black. Especially Black.

_I’m not a leader, but if Black reckons I can do it then…I guess I can only try…_

“Then who will pilot the Red Lion?”


	14. S3E2-4 -- Misgivings

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry for the delayed update :/ For some reason, the start of this chapter was a lot more difficult to write than the others. Maybe it’s because we’ve all already seen and felt the struggles Keith went through adapting to leadership? Maybe I’m just worn out from the intense last two weeks of studying/assignments/exams/insomnia I’ve had…? Hmm, mix of both I think :)
> 
> Chapter 14: S3E2, Red Paladin; S3E3, The Hunted; S3E4, Hole in the Sky.

The whole first flight in the Black Lion, Keith feels like a mere projection of himself. The loner of the group and yet he’s been chosen to lead Voltron. Black could’ve chosen someone who actually knows how to lead, like Allura or Coran, even Lance – but no, she chose _him_. Keith, who’s struggling to cope with the emotional strain of PTSD and is in no ‘calm’ state to lead the team like Shiro –

_Shiro has PTSD too._

It’s the first time Black’s really spoken to him. Keith falls silent.

_Sleepless nights, controlled exterior, internally screaming. Fear. One mistake could allow the enemy to take his team. Terrifying dreams, not restricted to when he’s asleep. Nightmares and imagination full of torture, but it’s not him being tortured._

Keith is mildly startled. He knew Shiro had it rough sometimes, but…

_Black. Why are you telling me this?_

_Listen. Listen hard. Look further._

_At what?_

_He’s the leader, but they decide as a team. He’s the leader, but not one person expects him to take responsibility for the whole team. He might finalise the decisions, but he doesn’t have to come up with the whole action plans on his own._

_Black. I don’t understand what you’re saying._

She withdraws then, leaving Keith lost in thought and in confusion.

 

Every time it’s not Shiro piloting Black, Keith’s denial deepens. Pidge warns him softly one night that he may eventually need to accept that they may never come back. Keith is about to lose his cool when he remembers that Pidge’s situation is no different from his: in the same way he’s not giving up on Shiro, she’s not giving up on searching for her brother and father.

He’s able to grieve with Pidge. On the other hand, nobody else mentions Shiro’s name and Keith’s PTSD picks up the subtle signal of someone gone missing and no one noticing and –

Theyserix happened because Keith was seeing double. The moment his brain drew the parallel between the threat of Lotor which he could potentially end and the threat of Laurens from whom he didn’t take the opportunity to run while he still had it, his decisions became purely instinct-based.

Lance is waiting in the hallway outside Black’s hangar when they return to the Castle. He says he’d picked up the strain in Keith’s voice when the team got separated. It had worried him. But it’s not something Keith likes to talk about, since he’s so scared of invalidation and rejection and not being able to explain his poor decisions well enough without making them out to be plain old excuses, so he doesn’t reply with anything but incoherent mumbling.

“I can see why you wanted to go after him,” Lance says, “from a war perspective. But you just got to learn to pick your battles.”

“It’s war, Lance,” Keith mutters. “We can’t just wake up one morning and be all like, ‘oh, _nah_ , I don’t feel like fighting today.’ What kind of a leader would I be if I did that?”

Lance considers him a moment, his tone, his body language, the glint in his eyes betraying how worn out he is. Self-conscious, Keith looks away, fidgeting with his paladin helmet in his hands.

“You’ve already got a war going on inside of you,” Lance murmurs. “That’s one hell of a fight you’re putting up already.” He grimaces, his expression softening. “I…I guess what I’m trying to say is… don’t be afraid to tell us when you’re having a rough day, man. Call out when you feel like you’re at your limit. You don’t have to put so much pressure on yourself. Like Shiro said right back at the beginning, we’re a team now so we should decide on stuff together. I mean, what kind of a team would we be if we made our leader deal with everything on his own?”

Keith sniffs. He’d intended that to be a grunt, but he’s far too tired to make it convincing. He’s been so close to crying and he’s cried out of exhaustion so many times these last few days, all he feels like is a wimp.

_I’m stronger than this…I’m…_

Lance smiles and gives him a friendly pat on the shoulder.

“We’ve got your back, buddy,” he says. “Don’t forget that.”

 

After the talk with Lance, Keith begins to learn where his errors stem from. For one, he’s been so stressed about filling Shiro’s shoes that he’s put far too much pressure on himself. He’d thought acting like a leader meant that he had to make calls for the rest of team. He’d thought that also meant that he had to _physically_ lead them into action.

Keith’s been alone for so long that he forgets that the others are there to support him – that’s mistake number two. He can’t help feeling ashamed about that. Lance speaking up for him, Shiro looking out for him, Hunk acknowledging when he needs space and Pidge… she literally carried him. Allura isn’t blind to the struggle he’s having adapting to leadership and Coran hasn’t demanded anything of him as he learns the ropes.

He trusts them. Moreover, they trust him. That’s the biggest encouragement Keith could have, but somehow…somehow it stays in his head and doesn’t reach to his heart. The reason for this is because there’s still someone he doesn’t trust fully: himself.

 

The Altean distress signal has Allura seeing ghosts and Keith seeing himself in her.

Something doesn’t sit right with him about this distress signal. To make matters worse, this is the exact same feeling he had when Laurens showed up at his door with the letter commanding him to go with her to the Biosecurity department. He’d walked straight into that trap, despite his gut warning him against it.

“As Paladins of Voltron,” Allura says, “it is our duty to help.”

_As a Cadet, it was an order I was obliged to follow._

Keith turns around in the Black paladin’s seat. “Princess,” he says, fighting to keep his voice even. “I think there could still be a chance that this whole thing is a _trap_.”

“Even if it’s not a trap,” Coran adds, “it’s far too dangerous to go in there.”

But it’s Allura they’re trying to convince here; unless they have extreme evidence to show her that their concerns are worth thinking over, there’ll be no changing her mind.

Allura narrows her eyes and strides out of the Balmeran crystal’s light. “I’ll do it myself if I have to.”

Keith frowns. He remembers how, if it were him in Allura’s place, the team wouldn’t dare let him go alone. Shiro wouldn’t have allowed it. Of course that means leaving his room and following Laurens down the halls to the Biosecurity department, something he knows –

They have no choice but to go with Allura. If she’s going to check out that ship, then she’s going out there with the rest of them and Keith’s just going to have to try his hardest to keep it together.

 _For the team_ , he chants to himself. _For the team._

It’s a lot harder than he would’ve liked. His voice is tight and his words are spaced out more than they usually are. To the others, maybe they think he’s just stressed and a little edgy with caution, but in reality Keith’s stricken with a bone-deep fear from his trauma.

_It’s okay. Chances are nothing’s going to happen. Just…go with it. For the team._

On its own, this is a high-risk expedition. Keith’s been on high-risk missions before, like the one not long ago when he snuck into Galra HQ to take over Thace’s part of the ‘defeat-Zarkon’ plan. This, however, isn’t planned out and carefully calculated like Kolivan and Shiro’s plan was – it’s full of unknowns, full of potential Voltron-ending risks and full of the same gut-wrenching apprehension which Keith ignored once and ended up a test subject because of doing exactly that.

_Chances are something’s going to happen, but it’s too late to worry about that now. I’ve got to keep going. For the team._

Biorhythms where there weren’t before. Planets where there weren’t before. Not only is this trip unsettling, it’s getting really, really _weird._ In the ‘uh, maybe we shouldn’t be here’ kind of way. The ghost ship and the not-empty Altean armour only amplify that feeling.

Then there’s Shiro. Keith’s heart nearly stops. But it’s not Shiro – it’s an alternate reality Shiro guy called Sven and all of a sudden the Blade of Marmora are now a different organisation called the Guns of Gamara. They way they talk about the Alteans has the alarm bells in Keith’s mind ringing louder.

It’s not until the ghost ship they’re on is boarded and Altean Commander Hira starts talking about Allura being some _Empress_ that Keith begins to get a sense for why they – or rather, he in particular – might want to consider running.

The Commander seems almost in awe of Allura. “You put down the Galra uprising and established the Altean Empire ten thousand years ago.”

 _Galra. Alteans. Empress._ Adrenaline is already flowing in Keith’s veins. The team then separates, him and Allura going with the Altean lady and the Garrison Trio heading off with the scientist. It’s too much like what happened with Sendak, their defences thinned and less eyes to keep watch around them…

The vibe in the air is too much the same as Lauren’s research team’s.

 

“Commander Hira,” the scientist says to the display opened up in front of him. “I have just stumbled across something in this ship’s hold that will ensure Altea’s rule for millennia to come.”

It’s the way he’s grinning when he says this that gets Pidge’s attention. ‘Peace and stability’…there’s a nudge in the back of her mind, warning her of something recent which paralleled this. She silently mulls over this until her thoughts stop at Keith.

Keith. The way that Laurens tortured him, or ran tests on him as she referred to it in the files…all in the name of ‘biosecurity.’ Pidge’s heart pounds. She keeps her eyes trained on the readings on the screen in front of her, putting on an act until she can figure out what’s not being said in regards to these Alteans’ ways of attaining this…’peace and stability’.

 

“So the Alteans of this reality defeated the Galra?”

Commander Hira smiles back at Allura proudly. “Led by you, My Empress.”

Keith’s hands are shaking. The nightmare he’d had about Allura dealing to him after she found out about his Galra blood is now fresh in his mind. Allura doesn’t seem to be noticing how nervous Keith is, but neither is Commander Hira. The two Alteans have their focus on each other and not him, and he’d prefer it to stay that way.

“Defeating Zarkon was the first step,” Commander Hira explains, “but we refuse to give up until all worlds know the true peace Altea has achieved.”

Allura claps her hands together, beaming. “That is so wonderful!”

Keith tightens his muscles in an attempt to dampen down his shaking. He’s sweating bad now, his heart racing. Intrusive memories of both the fake nightmare and the real nightmare he went through which now has him traumatised flicker back into his mind.

The warning signs are _so_ clear and if they don’t get out of here now – _the nurse grabs his wrist and secures it to the railing, there’s no escaping, there’s no escaping! –_ there’ll be no escaping.

 

“No struggle, no wars,” Hunk murmurs. “That doesn’t even sound possible.”

The scientist’s glasses glint. “Is it not? Look at Moxilous.” He gestures to the supposed-Galra at his side, still smiling. “For generations, his people have been in constant battle with the other planets of their system. It was a barbaric, futile existence. But look at him now.”

Pidge doesn’t like where this is heading. Lance asks what changed and all she can think about is when they discovered what the name ‘Mugilidae’ was referring to. Warning bells are going off in her mind and she’s almost praying that Hunk and Lance are catching onto this.

“The hoktril,” says the scientist. He flicks a finger and Moxilous turns around. “Our civilisation’s most advanced technological achievement. It saps the fighting force from our enemies. Their will, you might say.”

_The videos, after midnight, Pidge watches Keith writhe and scream against the hideous noise playing through the speakers - -_

_Oh no._

The scientist is still smiling, a neat little parallel of how Laurens quite happily sat there in the room beside Keith while he struggled, shouted, strained to get free of the bonds that held him down, stopped him from shutting out that _noise...._

“…because they don’t have will. Slaves are always trying to escape or revolt…”

 _Green,_ Pidge cries silently. _Warn the others! Please! We can’t let them lay their hands on Keith!_

“The non-cogs are content doing what they are told. Preservation of life is the Altean Empire’s highest priority.”

_Already aware. Fear not._

 

Keith’s had enough of staying silent. This goes beyond his own fears. The Alteans in this reality have crossed the line and he needs to make Allura aware of that urgently.

“But you’re taking away their free will,” he protests.

Commander Hira regards him cooly. “The same will that would end your life with no remorse. Thanks to us, no innocent will lose its life to the free will of an evil being.”

In his peripheral, Keith sees Allura noticing the changes in his behaviour. She’s only begun to pick up on that recently, after she watched the videos of him in the lab. But the words ‘evil being’ registers with her now, too, as much as it does with Keith. Allura may have once uttered those very words with her own tongue, but she’s not like that anymore.

But Commander Hira is cunning. She distracts the Princess with a map of Altea. All of a sudden Keith realises just how powerless he is in this situation and it sends a whole new wave of terror flooding through him.

Keith takes a step back. After the show Hira puts on, he tries to warn Allura about the differences this reality might have, including Altea itself, but Hira is quick to shut him down again – _cold hands brush his face and the cloth is tied around his mouth even as he yells out –_ and then distracts Allura again.

‘... _made sure that the Galra scourge was unable to spread across the universe like it did in your reality.’_

It’s like Commander Hira already knows. It’s like she already knows he’s one of them, of the ‘Galra scourge’, another ‘evil being’ who needs treatment so that he ‘loses his will to fight’ – _the mask goes over his face and it only takes a minute before Keith’s beginning to sag in their grip, two before his eyes start slipping shut and his will to shout leaves him and then he can’t think, can’t find the strength to fight, and then he’s under…_

His voice is hoarse when he tries one last time. “Maybe you should think about this, Allura. It wasn’t that long ago that we thought all Galra were bad.” _That you thought_ I _was bad._ “Maybe things aren’t as black and white as she’s making them out to be.”

But it’s Allura’s personal desires which win, over-riding Keith’s last attempt at enlightening her. The dangerous glare Hira gives him confirms he’s right to be suspicious, though, and it heightens his fear even more. How long will it be before Hira deals to him?

 

Pidge isn’t pleased about being marched up the bridge with her wrists cuffed behind her back, but she keeps quiet about it. They’re heading towards Keith. If he hasn’t already heard about the non-cog business, then she can warn him before it’s too late.

It is too late.

Not only has Allura already moved the ship out of the rift, Commander Hira has now seized the chance to hold Keith at gunpoint. Pidge’s heart pounds. She catches Keith’s eye. He stands as still as stone, no bayard summoned. She manages to convince him to ignore the itch in his fingers to grab a sword or his Blade of Marmora knife. She also manages to convince him that, no matter what happens, they’re not letting these Alteans get to him. She can see it in his eyes that he decides to trust her.

Keith’s not just afraid, he’s infuriated. “Let our friends go!”

Slav speaks the truth of Hira’s actions and finally, _finally,_ Allura _gets it_. The Princess gasps at the mention of slaves, at peace at the expense of freedom. Then her eyes flash and takes the four steps which end with her standing between Keith and the barrel of the gun levelled at his head.

“We both want the same thing, Hira,” Allura says cooly. “Peace. But your methods of bringing about this universal peace have me convinced of only one thing: you’re no Altean.”

Her bayard materialises in her hand and she swipes the gun from Hira. Allura’s shield protects both the Princess and Keith from the shot that fires from it. The sentries guns power up around them, Keith summons his own bayard and Slav cracks up laughing.

“Why are you laughing?” Lance asks, confused.

“’Cause this is the reality where everything works out _fine.”_

 

Slav’s right. It does work out fine. Just like when Lance came and got him before Laurens could go through with euthanizing him…

Voltron takes a hit while coming back through the rift though. Keith hears everyone screaming alongside him as the energy ripples through Voltron and then he’s slammed into oblivion. Unconsciousness doesn’t last long, but the pain is so immense that it takes a while before he’s able to open his eyes without the world spinning around him.

While he’s slumped back, listing to the side of his seat, Lotor snatches up the comet. Allura answers Coran’s communications but no one’s up to taking on Lotor. They can’t move their Lions, let alone move themselves, so sending Voltron after him is obviously not an option.

 _Learn to pick your battles,_ Lance had told him. Now Keith can see the merit in those words.

 

Back at the Castle, everyone checks on Keith. Hunk informs Coran of the alternate reality Alteans they came across and explains why the whole messed up experience has Keith so shaken. In the end, the team manages to convince him to take as much alone time as he needs. Pidge walks him back to his room.

“You gonna be okay?” she asks quietly.

Keith doesn’t nod, but he whispers a hoarse, “Yeah.”

They stand in the middle of his room somewhat awkwardly a moment. As much as he likes her company, this is one of those moments when he just needs to be alone. Thankfully Pidge sees this and takes no offense to it.

“Alright,” she says. “Just give us a yell if you get too overwhelmed, okay?”

Pidge leaves and Keith can no longer hold back his shuddering. His hands tremble as he removes his paladin armour, his knees weak as he strips out of his flight suit and tugs on his casual clothes. He doesn’t put on his belt, but he still keeps his knife close to him.

He crawls into the darkest corner on his bed, drags his pillow closer to the wall and cocoons himself in not just the usual thin sheet he sleeps under but a couple of the blankets that the Garrison Trio brought in for him when he was sick as well. Only then, with his sheathed knife held tight against his chest, does Keith let himself cry.

 

Pidge lingers outside his door. She listens to his panicked gasps, the terrified sobs muffled by blankets and the door. She waits, just in case those tears turn into overwhelmed screams. They don’t. Fifteen minutes later, the room has quietened down and so she peels herself away from the door frame and heads to the kitchen.

When she returns with a cup of hot Olkarion coffee – the good stuff, nothing like that weird tasting Balmeran stuff he’s been forcing himself to drink – Pidge finds Keith huddled in the corner of his bed, back pressed up against the wall. Half his face pokes out of the blankets, tousled black hair and closed, wet eyes. He doesn’t move when she enters the room and his breathing doesn’t change from its slow, eased rhythm.

_How are you so strong? You fight so hard, every day the same battles and every day arriving with new ones._

Pidge sets down the coffee in the middle of the floor where Keith’s belt is. The coffee won’t be hot when he gets to it, but she knows he won’t mind. He’ll drink it cold when he wakes up.


	15. S3E6,S4E1 -- Pulling Away

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Mere hours await us until we are ruined by Season 6!! :D In the meantime, here's part one of the last chapter! (uh, it was meant to all fit in a single chapter but I ended up writing more than I thought I would, so we'll get to Keith's kamikaze incident in the next one/half). I'll write up Naxzela sometime during the day tomorrow. It'll be short, so if you want to read it before Season 6, I'll probably have it up a good four or five hours before then. In the meanwhile, me needs to sleep before I ain't writing much English sense (laughs) :P
> 
> Chapter 15: S3E6, Tailing a Comet; S4E1, Code of Honour.

_Shiro…_

It starts when Keith’s finally worked up the courage to step into leadership. Of course, it’s only natural that Shiro would resume his role as leader on coming back to the team, but the way Keith isn’t left with a chance to deliver his approach to mission leaves him utterly confused. Shiro had wanted him to lead…hadn’t he?

_‘If anything ever happens to me, I want you to lead Voltron.’_

Maybe there’d been a condition spoken in those words that Keith had missed. There can’t be two leaders. At some point, one person is going to have to take the step back and right from the start it’s pretty clear that it’s not going to be Shiro.

Hunk and Pidge don’t mention whose call they are more willing to follow. Keith suspects that the only reason they’re not saying anything is because they know how hard he’s trying and they’re afraid of shutting him down. He’s grateful for their patience. Allura makes it clear she’s with Shiro. No matter how many times Keith tries to tell them all his perspective on their action plan, she won’t hear it if Shiro has other ideas.

He’s confused. It’s either Lotor or the teludav. Regardless of whether or not his PTSD plays a part, Keith’s convinced that Lotor is the major threat here. He’s like the queen on the chess board. Take him out now and they’ve eliminated a dangerous player. Leave him to run round the board and in another few turns they could find themselves very well checkmated. In that respect, yes – not taking the chance to get rid of Lotor is like not taking the chance to run away from Laurens while he still had the chance.

But Shiro insists that the teludav is the priority, and it takes all of Keith’s will not to snap at him for backseat driving. Shiro’s basically forcing him to deny his own survival instinct, to go against his usual relying on his instincts than on skill alone…and to be less ‘Keith’ and more ‘Shiro’.

Lance is the only one who ever actually asks Keith for _his_ decision. Lance, Pidge and Hunk are really the only ones – and maybe Coran, too – who still believe in Keith as a leader. The tricking Lotor into shooting the teludav was _his_ thinking based on _his_ instincts. Shiro’s ‘lower the shield and shoot the teludav’ was never going to work. The one time Keith didn’t speak up was the one time he was right.

The comet ship escapes with its pilot. The teludav is left to float in space as debri. Voltron separates and the Lions head back to their hangars in the Castle.

Keith returns to his self-doubt.

 

_Black. Why won’t you accept Shiro back?_

She’s quiet. Keith knows she’s listening.

_I’m not a natural leader. I do my own thing – that’s what I’m best at. That’s just who I am. Shiro’s back now, so you don’t need me. You and I…I’m sorry I’ve not been a good paladin for you. You deserve better. You deserve Shiro. He’s your true paladin. You guys bonded like me and Red. No, that’s not right – your bond with Shiro was a lot stronger than that._

‘Was’. Keith’s stomach churns. Why all of a sudden was he thinking in past tense?

_It’s like Shiro’s a different person._

It’s not fair, thinking like that. Leadership is stressful and Shiro’s just got back from a second time round in Galra prison. Keith understands now what trauma does to people, how it changes them. Not just trauma, but more specifically PTSD. So many times he’s tried to go back to living like he used to, space or otherwise. He trains so hard to make up for his lost stamina. His temper’s worse than it used to be and people make him more nervous than they used to. Keith still hasn’t made it back to feeling like himself again but it’s something he’s come to accept. He’ll never go back to being the Keith he used to know and in the same way Shiro won’t ever return to being the Takashi Shirogane whom Keith used to look up to.

Black’s choosing not to have any input. At the end of the day, she’s only a half-sentient mechanical space lion; Keith can’t go about expecting her to talk to him about more complex matters. The Lions have limits, just like their paladins. 

Shiro finds him where he’s been reflecting on all this, in a quiet side room with an observation window. The older guy apologises but there’s something about his tone that has Keith wondering about the extent to which Shiro is actually sorry. Technically speaking, Shiro hadn’t _needed_ to step in – he chose to. He _chose_ to talk over Keith when they laid out their action plans instead of stepping aside and letting Keith handle the situation.

_Does he even want me to lead? Am I just a back-up plan, a ‘just-in-case’?_

Lance has been really supportive of him as he figures out his own form of leadership, but Shiro seems to be constantly shoving Keith aside. Allura’s being vocal about how ‘Shiro’s got a point’ and ‘we need to listen to Shiro’ discourages him more and more. Keith begins to worry about his worthiness of flying Black. Allura had said, right at the beginning, that the person flying Black was supposed to be someone ‘whose men will follow’. If only half the team supports his decisions, then he’s not much of a leader, is he?

Keith begins to withdraw from the team. It starts with Shiro, unsurprisingly.

Shiro’s leadership continues to clashes with Keith’s. There’s something off about Shiro’s demeanour which has Keith on edge, but he always winds up convinced it’s probably nothing more than his PTSD-induced hyperviligance making Keith too sensitive to these things. Shiro’s tone of voice becomes less patient, his comments still firm but less kind in nature. All the time this is happening, the only person Keith blames is himself.

He joins the Blades on several infiltration missions of intel-gathering. It’s such a relief, a chance to breathe. Keith doesn’t have to think, just act. He doesn’t have to worry about four other people, just himself. The tasks are laid out and he’s not the one planning them. Kolivan gives the orders and it’s simply in, get the data they need and get out. It’s dangerous, but there’s no chess needing to be played to satisfy five or six other team members. Kolivan’s a little harsh in the way he says things, but his is a different kind of harsh to what Keith’s been receiving from Shiro.

The real turning point is when Keith’s just returned from a mission with the Blades with some new leads on Lotor. Lotor hasn’t been seen in months but Shiro doesn’t want to hear it. He commands Keith to get his Lion like he’s some kind of military leader and Keith’s his subordinate. He glances sideways but doesn’t turn his body to face him.

Keith bristles at that. At the fact that his words are being rendered irrelevant, that anything he brings to the table are never good enough. At the fact that _Shiro,_ who Keith used to think of as a broher, is making him out to be nothing more than some inexperienced step-in leader who’s too caught up in his obsession of chasing Lotor to see clearly.

“Now I need you to focus on the mission at hand,” Shiro says sharply.

Keith starts. “But – ”

“This isn’t a request, Keith.” Shiro whirls around. “Get to the Fimm System. That’s an order.”

Shiro might as well as have been the Garrison nurse tying the gag around his mouth. Keith narrows his eyes. It’s useless, trying to argue with this guy. He’s not even the leader of Voltron anymore and he’s ordering Keith around like he’s a General.

 _I can’t take this any longer. This is_ not _the Shiro I used to know._

It seems that the others have been feeding of his attack-Keith vibe, too. It’s even reached Pidge.

“Well,” she mutters. “Look who decided to show up.”

Lance raises his voice over the comms. “Yeah. Are you even taking this seriously?”

There’s no greeting from Hunk.

Keith sighs, defeated. “Sorry I’m late.”

Nobody says anything after that. Keith wants to apologise, but he knows that what he’s doing with the Blades is important and he hasn’t exactly done anything _wrong_ to date. But for some reason the entire Garrison trio is refusing to talk to him, and the support he once felt at the beginning of his leadership has been replaced by tension.

On talking to Shiro after helping escort the refugees like he was ordered to, Keith at least finds that the findings from the recent Blade missions has been discussed between him and Kolivan. He’s beginning to think that maybe it was just stress that had Shiro so wound up before, but then the conversation wheels back to Keith’s poor responsibility as leader and he’s back on guard.

“I support your decision to continue with your Marmora training,” Shiro says, “but not at the expense of the team. They need you, Keith. They need you to be their leader.”

He says it so earnestly that Keith nearly believes him. Once he would’ve, but he’s seen enough evidence these last few days to state otherwise. Hunk readily ignores him. Pidge doesn’t have time for him anymore. Lance’s encouragement has turned to retorts. Allura’s gone back to lecturing him and Coran doesn’t offer any words of advice.

 _They don’t need me._ You _don’t me. In fact, it’s probably more a case of you guys are sick and tired of needing me. I doubt I’m the only one who wishes Black would let Shiro pilot her again._

All these words remain inside Keith’s mind to eat away at his heart without anyone knowing about it.

 

The next mission with the Blades goes horribly wrong. They were set up. If not for Kolivan dragging Keith away by his hood, he’d have ended up with the same fate as Regris.

The journey back is one ridden in silence. Kolivan is angrily contemplating what the decoy ship means for their operations now and Keith is sitting stiffly on the floor failing to hide his panic attack from the Blade leader. His suit has a tear in it. It was the oxygen deprivation test all over again.

Keith struggles to maintain a reasonable sense of cool. He can’t let Kolivan think he’s weak or else he’ll never be allowed to join the Blades. Voltron’s on the home straight to rejecting him. Keith can’t handle that from Kolivan as well.

 

He loses his cool.

With frustrated shout, Keith hurls the ruined cup of coffee down on the floor. The cup shatters. The last of Keith’s patience does too.

He’d barely held it together during Allura’s lecture. He’d distracted himself by contemplating the best way to avoid running into anyone else, the result of that being making plans to hide himself away in the kitchen until he’s managed to calm himself down a little. But Keith’s having an incredibly hard time calming down, even after half a cup of overly concentrated, burnt Olkari coffee.

To put in plainly, Keith’s had enough.

He’s had enough of being emotionally wrecked. He’s done being shoved to the side while he’s doing his best to lead. He’s _done_ bracing himself for rejection from the very people he trusted to have his back not so long ago.

Keith yells. A wordless shout. Full of anger, fear and emotional fatigue. Strained with the intrusive memories of his trauma. He leans over the kitchen bench, elbows holding him up while his fingers dig into his hair like claws.

Arms come around his waist. Keith hisses, abruptly standing upright. The arms tighten, but their grip is not restricting. Someone leans their forehead into the back of his Marmora suit. He knows its Pidge since she only reaches up to his chest level height.

“What do you want?” he mumbles.

Pidge doesn’t say anything, only doesn’t let go. Normally this would’ve helped him, this gesture, but not anymore. Not after the way Pidge has been acting towards him recently in the same way the others have been. Keith tears himself away, kicks the coffee cup debri out of his path and strides out of the kitchen without looking back.

He hears his name being called, hears the footsteps coming after him. He’s tired, but he gaps it away from her. The footsteps pursue. Eventually Keith whirls on her, eyes flashing in warning. Pidge takes the hint before he lashes out at her physically. He spends the rest of the day avoiding everyone.

Apparently he’s still their leader, but Keith doesn’t put his Red paladin armour on again.

 

The first time he raises his Blade mask around them, he knows he’s withdrawn too far. He doesn’t hang around the Castle or any of the paladins any more than necessary. He lives in his Blade suit now, following Kolivan around like his shadow.

Black finally accepts Shiro.

Voltron is happening again, without him.

This isn’t straight up rejection but it hurts all the same. It hurts even _worse_ knowing that he felt the need to first reject his friends before any of this happened and then finding out that his past experiences ended up repeating themselves after all.

And it breaks him when he walks onto the bridge to find everyone glaring at him in sharp disapproval. Keith quickly averts his eyes, his heart hammering.

“Guys…I heard what happened. I’m sorry I wasn’t there to help.”

“You keep saying you’re sorry but your actions say otherwise,” Allura retorts. “Do you realise that your absence put the whole team in jeopardy?”

“And not just the team,” Lance adds. “The refugees as well.”

Pidge puts her two cents worth in, too. “As a matter of fact, the entire quadrant was in danger.”

It’s only a matter of seconds before he’s doubled over and throwing up in the doorway. Everyone just watches him, and there’s this sickening moment where he’s back at the Garrison and the doctor’s standing there watching his body twist in feverish pain and doing nothing. Then Coran’s at his side with a box of tissues and a towel which he uses to temporarily cover up the mess on the floor once Keith’s finished adding to it.

Coran lays a hand on Keith’s shoulder. “You alright there, young man?”

Keith leans against the doorframe. He takes a handful of tissues from the box Coran’s offering him and wipes his mouth. His hands are shaking again. He senses that the heightened tension in the room has lowered considerably since he started being sick, but Keith doesn’t want to risk having his heart stabbed another time. He’s not sure he’ll be able to stay conscious.

Coran stays near him, though he turns to deliver his next words to everyone.

“Well,” he says. “I suppose, if there was a bright side to any of this, is what that Keith’s absence allowed Shiro to re-establish his bond with the Black Lion.”

There’s a solemn quiet that settles in the room. Coran’s words are true. Nobody can argue with that.

Keith swallows. “You can finally be the leader I was unable to be,” he murmurs. “I’m not meant to pilot the Black Lion.”

“Is that why you’ve been pulling away from us?” Allura asks.

_No. It’s because of the way you’ve all been pushing me away._

“Yeah, I suppose that’s part of it.”

 Hunk crosses his arms. “What’s the other part?”

The atmosphere shifts again when everyone realises that he’s the minus-one in the six-pilots-five-Lions equation. Keith fights to keep the strain out of his voice. They’ve caused him so much hurt these last few months but he’ll never have the heart to tell them that. He doesn’t want to blame them as much as they don’t want to be angry at him. He implies that he’s leaving and once it’s clear they’re not going to try to stop him, Keith flashes everyone a fake smile and heads out the door.

He doesn’t make it even five steps before Pidge has her arms wrapped around him.

“I’m gonna miss you,” she cries.

Keith jerks to a halt.

“You’d better come back to us at the end of all this. Else, I told you – I’ll be going out there to get you back myself.”

Shiro slings an arm around Keith’s shoulder. “If this is what you feel is right, then…just know that we’re here for you if you need us, okay?”

“I can’t be left out of this!” Hunk yells.

All of a sudden Keith’s surrounded in a massive group hug. He’s a bit stunned. This…this is the team he remembers. These are the people who caught him when fell, who sat with him through his nightmares and time after time showed him how much they cared. This is the warmth of friendship that kept him going when his blood ran cold with fear. He can’t tell them how much all this means to him, though he wishes he could.

Eventually they all part, allowing Keith to make his way down to the hangar. He’s smiling until no one can see his face fall, faking that he’s all happy until he’s far enough away to allow himself a few private, realistic thoughts.

This could very well be the last time he sees any of them. These guys are relatively safe, but Keith’s a Blade now and with that comes an elevated risk. He could be dead by the end of tomorrow.

He doubts they realise the reality of this yet.


	16. S4E5-6 -- A Different Kind of Warfare

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Ahh!!! Less than an hour!!!!! :D Aaaaand here's the last chapter of 'Off the Radar' while we count down the minutes!
> 
> Chapter 16: S4E5, Begin the Blitz; S4E6, A New Defender

Lance sits upright his seat. “I say we get out of here. Pidge, plot a course for our escape!”

“Hold on,” Shiro says. “We should stay and find out what these things are.”

Pidge just called these things generators. Lance calls them a warning sign enough to leave. They’re massive. These glowing pillars are at least twenty times the height of Voltron and there’s heaps of them.

“Uh, Shiro?” Lance yells. “I seriously don’t think we should hang around here. We don’t know what these things are!”

“Like I said, that’s why we need to stay and – ”

Shiro breaks off as transparent purple hexagons appear above the generators, fanning out to cover the sky. Lance inwardly swears. It’s a barrier.

 _I knew it. I knew it. If you’d only_ listened _to me Shiro then we wouldn’t be in this situation!_

Keith would’ve listened. In fact, it would’ve been him suggesting they get out of there quick before Lance even brought it up. Keith’s super sensitive to anything that feels like a trap and Lance is beginning to work off that same intuition, too, after piloting Red for the last several months.

A thought flickers through Lance’s mind. _Did we make a mistake in letting Keith go?_

He doesn’t have time to linger on this thought long though as pain sears through his body.

 

Keith knows a set-up when he sees one. He’s got the sentry ship at full thrusters, powering it in the direction of the suspiciously stopped Galra fleet.

“Matt,” he says over the comms. “Something’s wrong. I can’t reach Voltron.”

“We can fly to Naxzela to check on them,” Pidge’s brother suggests.

“No. I need your help. I can’t explain why but I know we need to attack that fleet.”

Matt hesitates. “I thought that fleet had stopped…”

_Victory or death is the Galra way. If they’ve stopped, there’s a reason for it._

“It has. We’re afraid it has something to do with Voltron.”

“We’re with you,” Matt says quietly.

Keith smiles grimly at his old classmate’s willingness to assist. “Copy that. Good to have you along.”

 

The pressure on this bomb-planet is intense. Lance climbs back into Red’s cockpit where she lies a limp arm of Voltron. He doesn’t suppress his growl of frustration. Had Shiro _listened…_!

_What if this had been back at the Garrison, when Keith went missing? What if it had been Shiro I talked to and he didn’t believe me? What if Pidge and Hunk thought I was just being as ridiculous as always? We barely got Keith out of there in time, anyways._

Lance is nigh on angry tears at the thought. One small error such as someone refusing to listen could cost them so much. Sure, Keith had done it many times, but he’d been learning the whole leadership thing and he’d been willing to put his own stubbornness aside to listen to what the team was asking of him. He’d listened when Lance had called him back and he’d acted on it, no matter how much he hadn’t wanted to.

_Seriously, what is up with you, Shiro?_

Too late, he realises his own mistake. He was a part of the force that drove Keith away. He took part in that when he listened to Shiro’s disapproval and jumped on board that vibe without taking a moment to consider what Keith was wordlessly screaming at them. They’d rejected him, hadn’t they? They’d pushed him away, claiming that he wasn’t a good enough leader because he wasn’t taking the job seriously…

_Shiro actually barged in, didn’t he? He didn’t give Keith a chance to prove himself, instead he hopped in the back seat and decided that Keith didn’t deserve a chance to take hold of the wheel on his own._

There’s seventeen minutes left until Naxzela blows up. Voltron doesn’t have the drive to get through this pressure.

_With Keith as leader, we could be doing it right now. Everyone might be giving it everything they’ve got, but Keith has a real persistence about him, a sharp energy to persevere. If Keith were still here…_

Fifteen minutes. An idea comes to him.

_If Keith is Voltron’s fiery will to persevere, then Allura…Allura is its heart._

That fire nearly dies.

He’s seconds away from the shield. He braces for impact.

If the death of Keith Kogane is what it takes to save Voltron, the Blades and everyone within ten systems…quadrants…whatever it was worth of people, then it’s fine. Keith doesn’t regret it. He’s ashamed that he’s almost looking forward to it. Looking forward to his waking nightmares to be over. Looking forward to oblivion.

Maybe Laurens should’ve killed him. Maybe Red should’ve just left him out in space. Would Voltron have really suffered had the Trials rendered him dead? What about the war?

The universe answers.

_Today is not the day you perish from existence. You must live on._

The beam from Lotor’s ship cuts through the shield, blows up the canon. The canon erupts in flames and Keith gives the control sticks a startled yank. He doubles back to the rebel ships, sweating.

Keith stares into space for a solid minute – literal and non-literal space. He gasps for air, struggling to get his lungs to take deeper breaths, failing to keep himself from plummeting further and further into the spiralling panic attack. He’s dissociating a little when Coran’s excited voice comes through on the comms.

“You did it!”

Shiro speaks from Voltron. “Good work, Keith.”

Keith’s muscles are weak with adrenaline. _They don’t even realise what I was doing…_

“T-that wasn’t….that wasn’t me,” he stammers. “It was Lotor.” _The canon on his ship was the only thing powerful enough to take down that shield._

In his head he says that last part, but the words get stuck in his mouth. Keith tries to force them out, but he’s shaking badly and his brain’s refusing to co-operate. As soon as Lotor, the rebels and Voltron have sorted themselves out, Keith slips away without a word, hightailing back to where Kolivan waits at the Zaiforge Seifama canon – hightailing into space where he can be alone to recover from his shock.

 

Matt is stressed and Pidge doesn’t know why. Everyone’s in relieved spirits, albeit apprehensive as they await Lotor, but Matt is acting like something went terribly wrong back there and nobody else knows about it.

Her brother shakes his head. “Pidge, tell me. What did you _think_ Keith was doing when he blasted his ship towards the cannon?”

Pidge blinks, raising an eyebrow in confusion. Then she pieces certain bits of information together – the shock still lingering on Matt’s face, the way Keith’s voice had quavered when he spoke to them over the comms…the way he just up and left without saying anything – and it dawns on her.

“No…Keith – he wasn’t…was he?”

Matt nods solemnly. “That was nothing other than a kamikaze stint. He was going to do it, Pidge. I know the situation back there was dire, but does he really think so lowly of himself?”

In her peripheral, Pidge notices Lance listening in on their conversation with a scowl on his face. There’s a sobering anger in his eyes. Now Pidge is feeling it, too.

_It’s because of us. It’s because of the way we treated him. We pushed him away and we didn’t even stop to think for a second… and we let him go._

Pidge clenches her fists. _I am such a hypocrite._

 

Keith returns to the Zaiforge cannon on Seifama but doesn’t get out of the ship. It doesn’t take long before Kolivan notices he’s not coming out and approaches him to find out why.

Kolivan forces the hatch open with his blade. “Keith. Is something the matter?”

Keith’s too weak, too shocked to move, to say anything. He stays where he is, as he is, leaning back against in his seat with wide eyes staring out the windscreen.

“I insist you tell me what’s wrong.”

“…ah, I…I’m fine,” Keith whispers. “I-It’s nothing.”

For a moment, the Blade leader stands still. Then he props an arm on the open hatch doorframe and lets out a low growl.

“This isn’t the first time you’ve become like this.” Kolivan pauses, thinking. “Is it of any relevance to your new position as a Blade?”

 Keith sucks in a breath and glances sideways. Kolivan’s looking straight through him, waiting, silently waiting for an answer. Keith nods.

The Blade leader shifts his stance. “Do not worry about that. I have seen substantial evidence of your ability on missions such as these and I do not doubt it. Now, come on. Our pick-up vessel will be arriving in a few dobashes. I’ve sent one of the other Blades to fetch it.”

When Keith makes no effort to move, still far too shocked by his near-kamikaze, Kolivan reaches over and takes a hold of Keith’s arm. He tugs him towards him, and Keith all but collapses into Kolivan’s open arms. He’s shifted around so that the Blade leader can hold onto him a little easier, then he’s being carried away from the ship and back up the steps to the Zaiforge cannon control room.

“I don’t know what you are dealing with,” Kolivan murmurs, “but know that I am in the least aware of it.”

Keith tenses slightly. “H-how…?”

“The Trials.”

Those visions. Shiro had come in and Laurens had let them talk, but Shiro had walked away at the end of it and left Keith to his fate. Kolivan must’ve asked Shiro in person for a few more details, after seeing Keith collapse on the hangar floor.

“When you were adamant about taking over Thace’s part of the plan,” Kolivan says, “I recognised in you the rare spirit of a warrior. It’s one thing to be Galra; it’s another to be resilient and continue persevering in the wake of disaster. I greatly respect your fighting spirit, even if you are still young and let your emotions cloud your judgement. Initially I thought you were inexperienced in warfare, but I soon realised otherwise – you might not be so trained in intergalactic warfare, but I know you are very, very experienced in spiritual warfare, in the war that one must wage against the darker forces that threaten oneself. Your resilience and perseverance is what make you strong. Do not – and I repeat – _do not_ ever lose that fighting spirit, whatever the cost.”

Keith’s crying and there’s nothing he can do to hide it. Surely Kolivan thinks he’s weak. Surely he…

“Do not be ashamed to cry. I hear it is a human reaction that can be harmful if not expressed.” Kolivan looks down at Keith then, pauses on the last few steps to the top of the stairs and waits until Keith looks up at him. Then he continues, “If you need to cry, do so. It does not make you any less of a Blade.”

The tears don’t stop. Though he wishes they would, they don’t, so Keith does what Kolivan says and lets it all come tumbling out in a sobbing, gasping mess of sounds. The Blade leader sets him down on the top steps and sits beside him as the shock and the panic attack and the fear of rejection roll off him in waves, leaving and leaving him until Keith’s quietened to a shivering yet clear-eyed state. Keith’s cheeks burn red from embarrassment, and he knows Kolivan’s not the type of guy to appreciate a thank-you, but he does turn to stare at Kolivan with a firm, resolute answer:

_I will fight._

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you so much everyone for all your comments and kudos and for reading all the way from start to here! <3 <3
> 
> I'm probably going to do a Part Four to this series (with the inclusion of 'Extraction' - keep a look out for that. It'll be of a similar kind of story to this one, focusing on the repairing of friendships and restoring of those inter-paladin relations which kind of drifted apart in these last few chapters before Keith's departure from the team. I'll post it here on my tumblr when I get it up: callaeidae3.tumblr.com  
> Until then, later paladudes and paladudettes!! See you on the other side of Season 6! :D


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